BV  1471  .M32  1905 

McKinley,  Charles  Ethelbert, 

1870- 
Educational  evangelism 


OCT  ?8  1920 

EDUCATION  M^osmi  stv^ 
EVANGELISM 


The  Religious  Discipline 
for  Youth 


CHARLES  E.  McKINLEY 


BOSTON 

XTbc  ptlQrim  press 


NEW  YORK 


CHICAGO 


Copyright  1905, 

liY 

Charles  E.  McKinleit 


To 
Isaac    Addison    McKinley 

and 

Mary  Allspaugh  McKinley 

in  token  of  a 

Son's  Imperishable  Love. 


Preface 

The  following  essay  endeavors  to  de- 
velop, briefly  and  suggestively,  a  conception 
of  the  religious  discipline  that  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  most  fitting  and  desirable  for  the 
years  of  adolescence  in  view  of  the  spiritual 
experiences  through  which  nature  conducts 
the  young  soul  on  the  road  to  maturity. 
The  standpoint  is  not  that  of  an  expert 
scientific  investigator,  but  that  of  one  bound 
to  a  goodly  company  of  youth  by  ties  of 
personal  sympathy.  The  writer  has  done 
his  best,  however,  for  their  sakes,  to  profit 
by  the  scientific  investigation  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  youth,  and  his  indebtedness  to 
all  those  who,  in  recent  years,  have  written 
so  ably  upon  adolescence  and  religious  psy- 
chology— Hall,  James,  Starbuck,  Coe,  Gran- 
ger, and  many  more — is  manifest  on  every 
page.  Not  so  manifest,  perhaps,  but  quite 
5 


6  PEEFACE 

as  worthy  of  acknowledgment,  are  his  ob- 
ligations to  the  remarkable  book  by  Charles 
Wagner  entitled  "  Youth,"  to  which  he  owes 
some  of  the  initial  insights  of  this  study. 

He  ventures,  however,  to  presume  that 
the  reader  will  be  able  to  discern,  without 
the  aid  of  further  acknowledgments,  the 
extent  of  these  various  obligations,  and  to 
judge  for  himself  whether,  deducting  the 
evident  liabilities,  there  remain  in  the  vol- 
ume any  net  assets  of  sound  thinking  or 
suggestive  insight.  He  is  guilty  also  of 
presuming  that  the  standpoint  which  he 
occupies  may  furnish  something  worth  say- 
ing, even  to  one  all  inexpert  in  the  methods 
of  the  laboratory  and  the  use  of  the  ques- 
tionnaire. Love  is  sometimes  more  pene- 
trating than  research,  and  things  have  been 
revealed  to  babes  that  were  not  discovered 
by  the  wise  and  prudent.  And  if  it  should 
be  said  that  in  forsaking  the  methods  of  ex- 
act science  to  follow  the  guidance  of  sym- 


PEEFACE 


pathetic  insight,  the  author  is  turning  from 
the  light  of  day  to  wander  in  the  dark,  his 
suiRcient  consolation  would  be  the  fact  that 
night  also  has  its  wonderful  disclosures,  for 
then 

"  The  sky  is  filled  with  stars,  invisible  by  day." 


Note. — Chapter  III  reproduces  some  of  the  thought 
and  language  of  an  address  at  the  Bushnell  Centennial  in 
Hartford  in  1902.  published  in  the  commemorative  vol- 
ume. Chapter  VIII  likewise  contains  the  substance  of 
an  address  published  in  3Ien  of  To-morrow  for  Jan- 
uary, 1901.  Both  chapters  are  wholly  different  in  con- 
ception, plan  and  development  from  the  addresses  out  of 
which  they  grew. 


Contents 

I.  An  Introduction  to  Youth     ...  1 1 

II.     The  Drama  of  Youth 25 

III.  The  Genesis  of  Christian  Character  45 

IV.  Where  Christian  Nurture  Fails       .  68 
V.  The  Evangelism  of  Jesus     ....  98 

VI.      Personal  Adjustment 123 

VII.     A  Graded  Gospel 146 

VIII.  The  School  of  Worship     .      .      .      .  173 

IX.     Aims  and  Expectations 201 

X.     Agencies  and  Methods 226 


EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

CHAPTER  I 
An  Introduction  to  Youth 

"  I  WOULD  there  were  no  age  between  six- 
teen and  three-and-tvventy,  or  that  youth 
would  sleep  out  the  rest ! " 

It  is  one  of  the  imperishable  memories  of 
college  days.  The  professor  in  the  Shake- 
speare class  was  calling  for  choice  passages 
from  a  play  assigned  for  private  reading,  a 
bland  smile  playing  over  his  features  as  we 
gave  our  patronizing  approval  to  this  and 
that  specimen  of  the  great  dramatist's  work, 
varied,  however,  now  and  then,  with  a  snap 
of  the  eyes  that  threatened  to  break  his 
glasses. 

Did  I  overestimate  the  personal  tone  that 
my  classmate  put  into  these  words  which  he 
quoted,  as  if  they  expressed  his  views  ex- 
actly ?     Possibly  ;  for  I,  too,  was  sick  of  be- 


12       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ing  a  boy,  eager  to  be  a  man.  And  I  was 
half  convinced — what  youth  is  not? — that 
ail  professors  and  older  people  generally 
cherish  a  lurking  approval  of  the  shepherd's 
maledictory  wish. 

For  is  not  youth  the  troublesome  age? 
Is  it  not  the  self-conceited,  smart,  restless, 
wayward,  rebellious  age,  the  age  for  which 
mature  people  have  least  sympathy,  of  which 
youth  itself  has  most  dread  ?  And  is  not 
the  keenest  pain  of  youth  just  this,  that 
while  the  grown  folks  may  find  it  uncom- 
fortable to  have  a  big  boy  in  the  house,  they 
do  not  seem  to  understand  that  it  is  many 
times  more  uncomfortable  to  be  the  big  boy  ? 
What  is  youth  ?  A  wide,  deep  river,  di- 
viding childhood  from  manhood ;  a  river 
which,  like  the  river  of  death,  must  be 
crossed  without  bridge  or  boat ;  throitgh 
which  each  soul  must  go  ;  into  whose  turbid 
waters  the  child  must  descend  alone,  know- 
ing well  that  beneath  their  flood  his  child- 
hood will  be  buried  to  rise  no  more;  a 
stream  both  broad  and  turbulent,  not  to  be 
crossed  in  a  day  or  a  year ;  whose  buoyant 
waters  will  indeed  bear  him  up,  but  not  with- 


AN  INTEODUCTION  TO  YOUTH     13 


out  his  efforts  ;  whose  currents  will  land  him 
somewhere  on  the  other  shore,  but,  oh,  so  far 
down  stream,  on  the  dusty  plains  of  sordid, 
sinful  manhood,  far  out  of  sight  of  those 
green  hills  of  childhood  that  were  so  near  to 
heaven. 

Only  by  some  such  figure  can  we  picture 
to  ourselves  this  wide  interval  between  the 
child  and  the  man.     It  is  a  time  when  all  is 
fluid,  restless,  changing,  nothing  settled  or 
fixed,  no  foundation  sure ;  when  one  is  car- 
ried off  his  feet,  away  from  the  moorings  of 
early  years,  and  swept  towards  he  knows  not 
what  destiny  by  strange,  new  currents  of  life 
that  he  does  not  comprehend  ;  a  fascinating, 
wondrous  time  of  freshness  and  bloom,  when 
unmeasured  continents  of  power  are  discov- 
ered in  the  soul,  opening  up  boundless  pos- 
sibilities, and   new    visions  of   life  and   its 
meaning  come  sweeping  daily   before   the 
spirit's  eyes  as  one  is  borne  along  to  view- 
points ever  new  ;  a  time  of  exhilaration  and 
suspense,  while  forces  of  nature  beyond  con- 
trol rush  one  forward  in  the  resistless  prog- 
ress toward  a  goal  that  is  hidden  as  yet  from 
sight. 


14       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Youth  has  been  maligned  ;  because  it  is 
easier  for  Shakespeare's  shepherd — and  oth- 
ers— to  grumble  than  to  understand. 

For  the  fact  is  that  youth  is  still  the  por- 
tion of  human  life  least  understood.  Lovers 
of  children  are  we  all,  but  downrio^ht  lovers 
of  youth  are  few.  The  dullest  heart  re- 
sponds to  the  appeal  of  childhood,  but  only 
the  discerning  kindle  at  contact  with  youth. 
The  last  century  was  the  children's  era. 
Child-life  has  had  its  prophets  and  inter- 
preters. Froebel  and  Eobert  Raikes  and 
Horace  Bushnell  and  Horace  Mann  have 
had  a  multitude  of  followers.  The  study  of 
the  child's  mind  has  been  exalted  to  a  sci- 
ence ;  the  interests  of  childhood  have  been 
amply  set  forth,  its  rights  ably  defended  ; 
elementary  education  has  been  revolution- 
ized, and  the  world  has  been  led  at  last  to  a 
respectable  understanding  of  the  needs  and 
nature  of  the  child. 

But  many  of  the  phenomena  of  3"outh  are 
still  regarded  with  uncomprehending  amaze- 
ment. The  attitude  of  the  majority  toward 
youth  is  about  this  :  "  Childhood  we  know, 
and  manhood  we  know  ;  but  who,  or  what, 


AX  IXTKODUCTION  TO  YOUTH     15 

art  thou  ?  "  The  largest  part  of  mankind  is 
waiting  for  an  introduction  to  youth  ;  they 
are  still  strangers  after  all.  But  there  are 
those  who  are  seeking  an  acquaintance  in 
all  seriousness.  They  no  longer  assume 
that  they  know  youth.  Youth  is  no  longer 
to  be  taken  for  granted  and  ignored.  The 
inductive  study  of  the  mind  and  spirit  of 
youth  is  being  pursued  with  a  zeal  that  is 
according  to  knowledge  and  a  zest  that  fal- 
ters at  no  difficulty  or  magnitude  in  the 
work  to  be  done.  Many  influences  have 
conspired  to  bring  the  interests  and  prob- 
lems of  youthful  life  before  the  world  as 
never  before.  The  study  of  the  mind  of  the 
child  was  certain  to  lead,  in  time,  to  more 
thorough  investigation  of  the  special  char- 
acteristics of  youth ;  the  development  of 
primary  education  made  imperative  a  refor- 
mation of  secondary  education,  which  in 
turn  called  for  a  better  understanding  of  the 
native  interests  and  essential  needs  of  those 
in  the  formative  period  of  adolescence ;  the 
rapid  rise  of  young  people's  religious  socie- 
ties compelled  thoughtful  attention  to  the 
serious  problems  which  they  raised  ;  and  ex- 


16       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

pert  scientists  have  already  done  an  epoch- 
making  work  to  promote  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  mind  of  youth. 

The  unique  and  distinctive  character  of 
this  period,  the  nature  of  the  process  by 
which  the  child  becomes  a  man,  the  order 
of  development  and  the  character  of  the 
successive  changes  that  take  place,  are  now 
defined  with  far  greater  precision  than  ever 
before.  The  way  is  clear  for  that  better 
acquaintance  with  3^outh  which  is  in  every 
way  so  desirable.  Our  present  purpose  is 
to  look  into  the  naturally  ordered  spiritual 
experience  of  youth,  and  seek  therein  for 
hints  to  help  in  the  religious  treatment  of 
those  who  are  passing  through  these  rest- 
less years.  The  effort  can  hardly  be  fruit- 
less ;  and  it  will  be  richly  worth  while  if  it 
should  lead  some  who  are  impatient  with  the 
ways  of  youth  to  repent  of  having  ever 
wished  that  there  were  no  age  between  six- 
teen and  three-and-twenty. 

By  the  spiritual  experience  of  youth  we 
are  to  understand  that  inward  experience, 
howsoever  affected  by  influences  from  with- 
out, by  which  a  personal  character  is  formed. 


AN  IKTEODUCTION  TO  YOUTH    17 

The  formation  of  his  individual,  personal 
character  is  the  supreme  work  of  youth. 
The  method  may  be  that  of  the  natural  un- 
folding of  the  character  implicit  in  his  child- 
hood's virtues,  or  that  of  personal  enrich- 
ment in  character  through  entrance  into  a 
more  complex  life,  or  that  of  the  radical 
alteration  of  character  to  suit  a  changed 
environment  as  he  passes  from  youth  to 
manhood,  or  that  of  a  revolution  that 
changes  his  character  for  good  or  ill  at 
all  its  cardinal  points  in  a  day  ;  in  any  case, 
the  business  of  character-forming  is  youth's 
greatest  concern,  and  the  character  with 
which  he  issues  into  the  field  of  manhood  is 
his  best  capital  or  his  heaviest  drag  in  later 
life. 

Now  the  process  of  character-formation 
is  not  to  be  viewed  apart  from  the  other  in- 
terests and  tasks  of  youth.  It  goes  hand  in 
hand  with  the  transformation  of  the  child 
in  body,  mind  and  spirit  into  a  man.  At 
every  stage  it  is  profoundly  influenced,where 
it  is  not  actually  controlled,  by  the  factors 
then  dominant  in  the  general  process.  The 
entire  process  of  transformation  extends  over 


18      EDUCATIONAL  EVAKGELIS3I 

a  period  of  ten  or  a  dozen  years,  from  the 
age  of  thirteen  onward,  beginning  and  end- 
ing earlier,  as  everybody  knows,  with  girls 
than  with  boys.  Within  these  years  a  cer- 
tain order  of  development  is  practically  uni- 
versal, making  possible  a  division  of  youth 
itself  into  three  distinct  periods.  The  be- 
ginning and  ending  of  these  periods  are  not 
at  all  distinctly  marked,  nor  are  the  inter- 
ests of  one  excluded  from  the  others ;  yet 
the  special  character  of  each  is  plain.  If 
we  divide  the  entire  time  between  the  end 
of  childhood  and  the  beginning  of  maturity 
into  three  nearly  equal  periods,  and  call  the 
first  the  physical,  the  second  the  mental, 
and  the  third  the  social  period  of  adoles- 
cence, we  shall  have  a  rough  framework  for 
our  study,  a  broad  outline  which  is  yet  ac- 
curate enough  for  our  present  general  pur- 
pose. 

In  the  first  of  these  periods,  say  from  the 
thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth  year,  the  for- 
mation of  character  is  profoundly  influenced 
by  bodily  growth.  It  is  the  time  of  most 
rapid,  often  of  sudden  and  surprising,  phys- 
ical development.    Growth  is  often  dispropor- 


AN  1:NTE0DUCTI0N  to  youth     19 

Lionate,  and  size  comes  faster  than  strength. 
When  a  boy  suddenly  shoots  up  tall  and  slen- 
der, with  shoulders  too  narrow  for  his  height 
and  hands  and  feet  too  large  for  the  limbs 
that  carry  them,  and  all  his  frame  loose  in 
the  joints,  how  could  it  be  possible  for  him 
to  display  the  moral  character  or  have  the 
spiritual  experiences  of  a  curly-headed, 
round-faced  child,  or  of  a  well-knit  man? 
The  development  of  the  physical  differences 
in  the  sexes  in  this  period  is  accompanied 
by  the  appearance  of  marked  differences  in 
their  mental  and  moral  natures.  When  we 
remember  that  "  the  hot  blood  of  youth  "  is 
not  a  figure  of  speech  but  a  literal  fact,  the 
temperature  of  the  body  in  adolescence  be- 
ing about  a  degree  higher  than  in  earlier  or 
later  years,  we  should  know  better  than  to 
expect  from  the  youth  either  the  quiet  sub- 
missiveness  of  the  child  or  the  cool  judg- 
ment of  the  man.  When  we  think  how 
nature  dowers  youth  with  seemingly  inex- 
haustible supplies  of  new  energy,  repairing 
all  their  prodigal  waste  with  lavish  hand,  so 
that  they  rush  into  exhausting  contests  and 
foolhardy  adventures  with    undoubting  as- 


20       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

surance  of  their  ability  to  make  good  all 
losses,  we  are  not  so  much  surprised  that  they 
should  take,  without  a  thought  of  danger, 
moral  risks  that  to  older  heads  are  simply 
appalling.  And  when  we  reflect  that,  do 
the  best  she  can,  nature  cannot  transform 
the  body  of  a  boy  into  that  of  a  man  in  less 
than  ten  years'  time,  we  may  be  disposed  to 
exercise  more  patience  with  the  seemingly 
slow  progress  of  our  young  people  in  moral 
and  spiritual  attainment. 

Mental  development  is  rapid  from  the  be- 
ginning of  youth,  and  physical  development 
is  not  complete  until  the  end  of  the  period ; 
but  as  rapid  physical  growth  dominates  the 
early,  so  rapid  mental  growth  dominates 
the  middle  years  of  adolescence.  The  un- 
folding of  the  mental  powers  is  even  more 
intimately  associated  with  the  development 
of  character  than  physical  growth.  The 
larger  mental  vision  requires  a  readjust- 
ment of  the  ideals  of  life.  The  youth  be- 
gins to  reason,  to  follow  intricate  and  elabo- 
rate processes  of  argument,  to  form  judg- 
ments based  on  a  more  and  more  extended 
view  of  facts  and  principles.     Delighting  in 


AN  INTEODUCTION  TO  YOUTH    21 

his  independence  of  thought,  he  takes  pleas- 
ure in  questioning  the  wisdom  of  others, 
and  in  confuting  their  statements.  He 
shapes  his  own  convictions,  and  often  shows 
a  greater  confidence  in  his  own  conclusions 
than  their  merit  warrants.  The  kindling  of 
imagination  places  before  his  mind  a  set  of 
ideals  and  ambitions,  self-discovered  and 
self-chosen,  which  henceforth  dominate  the 
moral  and  spiritual  movements  of  his  being. 
The  emotional  awakening  that  accompanies 
this  increase  of  mental  breadth  and  reach  is 
also  of  vast  significance  for  character.  That 
disturbance  of  the  emotional  equilibrium, 
that  agitation  of  a  soul  dragged  hither  and 
thither  by  conflicting  impulses  and  desires, 
which  is  known  as  the  "  storm  and  stress  " 
of  the  spirit,  now  reaches  its  height.  The 
youth  who  as  a  child  was  entertained  with 
hero  tales,  admired  the  heroes  and  dreaded 
the  villains,  now  feels  it  in  himself  to  be 
in  very  truth,  not  in  childish  play,  a  hero  or 
a  villain,  or  both.  His  intensified  self-con- 
sciousness makes  him  by  turns  bashful  and 
bold,  diffident  and  boastful,  secretive  and 
assertive.     With  overweening  sense  of  the 


22       EDUCATIONAL  EVAXGELI8M 

value  of  his  new-found  personal  self,  he  may 
become  heartlessly  selfish  ;  or  the  altruistic 
feelings  may  win  dominion  over  him,  and 
make  him  more  than  ever  a  loving  son,  a 
devoted  brother,  a  generous  friend. 

But  the  full  dominance  of  the  altruistic 
feelings  belongs  to  the  last  or  social  period 
of  youth.  That  is  the  time  when  one  finds 
his  place  and  settles  to  his  work  in  the 
world,  when  the  life  reaches  out  beyond 
oneself  and  he  learns  to  know  himself  as 
a  factor  in  the  life  of  the  community,  when 
he  enters  responsibly  upon  his  social  and 
civic  duties  as  a  citizen.  The  social  impulse 
that  rules  this  time  is,  of  course,  most  con- 
spicuously displayed  in  the  relations  of  the 
sexes.  In  early  adolescence  the  boys  and 
girls  part  company  b}^  instinct ;  totally  di- 
verse interests  come  to  control  the  two  sexes 
for  a  time.  But  in  the  social  period  there 
is  a  gradual  return  to  common  interests  and 
mutual  understanding,  to  likeness  of  tastes 
and  feelings,  an  approach  that  culminates  in 
the  love-making  and  the  mating  of  young 
men  and  women  to  create  new  social  centers 
in  homes  of  their  own.     All  this  cannot  but 


AN  INTRODUCTIOK  TO  YOUTH    23 


have  much  to  do  with  the  inner  spiritual 
experience  that  linally  issues  in  a  settled 
character.  It  is  to  be  certainly  expected 
that  altruistic  and  social  considerations  will 
now  exert  great  influence  on  the  process  of 
character-formation,  and  that  the  rise  of 
the  social  instincts  to  controlling  power,  and 
the  adjustment  of  young  lives  to  their  place 
and  work  in  the  world,  will  be  accompanied 
by  marked  decisions  and  significant  defini- 
tions that  go  far  to  give  personal  character 
its  final  form. 

This  introduction  to  the  distinctive  inter- 
ests of  the  different  periods  of  youth  is 
sufficient  to  show  that  the  spiritual  experi- 
ence of  youth  must  be  something  great  and 
deep  and  infinitely  varied.  He  who  would 
explore  it  will  be  led  into  a  forest  wide  and 
dark,  which  is  for  some  a  wilderness,  with 
many  a  bog  and  fen,  and  many  a  trackless 
waste.  Many  and  devious  are  the  paths 
that  lead  through  it,  highways  and  byways 
of  the  soul  in  its  journey  from  child  hood,  to 
maturity ;  uncharted  mostly,  and  some  un- 
tra versed  save  by  one  who  goes  his   way 


24       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

alone.  Yet  all  these  myriad  paths,  these 
countless  forms  of  experience,  despite  their 
infinite  variety,  have  one  general  trend ; 
they  all  lead  through  the  forest;  by  this 
way  or  by  that,  with  many  turnings  or  with 
few,  the  youth  emerges  at  last  from  the  for- 
est shades  into  the  broad  light  of  manhood's 
open  plain. 

Our  next  step,  therefore,  will  be  the  en- 
deavor to  sketch  an  outline  map  of  the  jour- 
ney as  a  whole.  Ignoring  the  fascinating 
details  of  the  personal  adventures  of  indi- 
vidual travelers  through  this  forest,  we  shall 
note  the  general  trend  of  their  various 
paths,  mark  the  points  that  all  must  pass, 
and  observe  the  places  of  peculiar  danger  or 
promise.  In  other  words,  we  shall  attempt 
a  general  outline  of  the  typical,  essential, 
spiritual  experiences  through  which  we  are 
to  expect  the  youth  to  pass  on  his  way  from 
childhood  to  maturity,  and  in  which  the 
laws  of  his  spiritual  education  are  to  be 
discerned. 


CHAPTEK  II 
The  Drama  of  Youth 

During  the  years  that  divide  childhood 
from  maturity,  there  is  enacted  in  the  soul 
a  drama  second  to  none  in  significance  and 
interest.  To  understand  this  drama  is  to 
acquire  a  deeper,  wiser  love  for  youth.  To 
sketch  it  in  outline,  setting  forth  the  normal 
sequence  of  spiritual  experiences  through 
which  the  youth  is  conducted  in  the  course 
of  his  development,  is  the  object  of  this 
chapter. 

In  the  transformation  of  the  child  into 
the  man,  there  are  three  great  things  to  be 
done.  We  observe,  accordingly,  three  acts 
in  the  drama  of  youth.  They  correspond 
also  in  a  general  w^ay  with  the  three  periods 
of  adolescence.  The  dramatic  action  of  the 
first  period  centers  in  the  youth's  achieve- 
ment of  his  personal  freedom ;  in  the  sec- 
ond, in  his  discovery  of  life ;  in  the  third,  in 
his  incorporation,  as  a  distinct  individual, 
25 


26       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

into  the  social  body.  The  first  step  to  a 
sympathetic  understanding  of  youth  is  an 
intelligent  acquaintance  with  the  necessary, 
dramatic  action  within  the  spirit  by  which 
these  successive  objects  are  attained. 

How,  then,  does  the  soul  achieve  its  free- 
dom ?  How  does  the  child  set  out  to  be- 
come a  man  ? 

The  child  is  born  into  a  ready-made 
world,  and  spends  his  childhood  in  becom- 
ing familiar  with  it.  By  it  he  is  sustained, 
protected,  instructed.  To  it  he  conforms,  in 
most  instances  willingly,  in  exceptional  ones 
under  stress  of  discipline.  But  before  the 
child  can  be  a  man,  he  must  work  this 
ready-made  world  over  into  the  terms  of  his 
personal  life ;  for  every  man  must,  in  a  sense, 
build  his  own  world.  When  therefore  the 
child  becomes  a  youth  he  casts  off  the  world 
that  he  has  known,  like  so  many  pieces  of 
clothing  outgrown.  He  begins  to  build  his 
own  world.  He  begins  to  act  on  his  own 
initiative,  rather  than  at  the  command  of 
others.  He  feels  new  powers  at  work 
within  him,  preparing  him  to  be  independent 
of  support  and  control.     As  he  becomes  too 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  27 

large  in  body  to  be  governed  by  corporal 
punishment,  and  strong  enough  to  be  effect- 
ive at  manual  labor  or  manly  sports,  his 
mind  also  refuses  control  from  without  and 
displays  a  new  efficiency  in  independent 
work.  He  can  think  more  surely,  see  more 
deeply,  comprehend  more  widely ;  and 
withal  he  is  conscious  of  a  new  constructive 
power  to  form  and  execute  his  own  designs. 
All  this  unsettles  his  relation  to  his  world  ; 
the  physical  uneasiness  of  the  period  is 
matched  by  mental  and  spiritual  unrest. 

The  ready-made  world  of  custom,  rule  and 
convention  is  now  required  to  justify  itself 
to  the  mind  of  the  youth ;  and  if  it  be  not 
founded  on  the  everlasting  rocks,  he  will 
find  it  out,  and  go  delving  for  a  better 
foundation.  In  order  to  make  a  man  of 
him,  nature  draws  him  apart,  bids  him  ex- 
amine and  make  sure  of  his  foundations, 
sets  him  over  against  his  entire  environ- 
ment, and  makes  him  doubt  and  question 
and  criticize  that  world  in  which  he  finds 
himself.  As  a  child,  he  was  in  and  of  that 
world ;  now  he  comes  to  regard  himself  as 
apart  from  it.     He  no  longer  relies  on  it  for 


28       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

support  or  defense.  He  often  feels  himself 
alone,  with  battles  to  fight  in  which  assist- 
ance from  without  is  impossible ;  yet  even 
so  feels  proudly  conscious  that  he  is  strong 
enough  to  fight  and  win.  A  spirit  of  self- 
sufficiency  is  awake  within  him.  The  wis- 
dom of  his  parents  is  no  longer  wise  enough 
for  him,  and  the  truth  of  his  teachers  no 
longer  true  enough  for  him,  and  the  God  of 
his  church  no  longer  great  enough  for  him. 
The  new  life  that  animates  him  requires 
him  to  stand  apart  from  it  all  as  a  separate 
individual.  Habits,  thoughts,  places,  activ- 
ities, and  even  persons  that  have  been  his 
delight  now  lose  their  attractions  for  him. 
In  a  word,  the  soul  of  the  youth  is  alienated 
from  its  world. 

It  is  by  such  alienation  that  the  soul 
achieves  its  freedom.  The  child  setting  out 
to  become  a  man  must  be  expected  to  find 
himself  in  frequent  opposition  to  his  child- 
hood's world  of  ideas,  habits  and  purposes, 
to  cease  to  be  confiding  and  submissively 
obedient,  and  to  seek  his  law  within.  Such 
an  alienation  of  spirit,  much  more  pro- 
nounced in  some  cases  than  in  others,  is  a 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  29 

normal  characteristic  of  youth.  One  inves- 
tigator found  that  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
young  people  whom  he  studied  loved  soli- 
tude. The  reason  is  apparent :  estrangement 
is  the  price  the  soul  must  pay  for  individu- 
ality. Before  the  soul  is  fitted  for  the  ac- 
tivities of  a  man's  life,  it  must  needs  retire 
upon  itself,  separate  itself  from  the  world, 
from  customs  and  regulations  that  have 
been  familiar,  get  its  own  point  of  view,  and 
estimate  the  worth  of  things  for  itself.  It 
is  in  seclusion  that  the  soul  comes  to  know 
its  own  freedom,  works  its  ideas  and  con- 
victions into  a  harmony,  forms  its  great  life 
purposes,  and  becomes  really  able  to  stand 
alone  before  the  world.  Like  the  Prodigal 
Son,  the  soul  must  gather  all  its  own  to- 
gether and  withdraw  to  a  far  country  ;  but 
it  is  not  prodigals  only  that  do  so ;  before 
entering  upon  life's  work,  Moses  and  Elijah, 
Christ  and  Paul,  went  alone  into  the  wilder- 
ness. 

The  second  act  in  the  drama  of  youth  is 
the  discovery  of  life.  Going  forth  master 
of  himself  and  of  his  own  affairs,  the  youth 


30       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

makes  trial  of  life  on  his  own  responsibility. 
He  "  sees  life  "  ;  he  discovers  what  life  is ; 
and  his  first  discovery  is  tragic. 

The  tragedy  of  human  life  is  this :  that 
while  none  can  be  a  man  until  his  soul  has 
achieved  its  freedom,  yet  none  is  wise 
enough  to  make  faultless  use  of  freedom 
when  secured.  Man  is  no  sooner  free  than 
he  becomes  a  sinner.  Since  the  world  be- 
gan, says  one,  there  has  never  been  a  child 
but  was  told  that  if  he  played  with  the  fire 
he  would  be  burned ;  and  since  the  world 
began  there  has  never  been  a  child  but  has 
played  with  the  fire  and  been  burned. 
Among  the  experiences  that  are  universal 
and  seem  to  be  necessary  for  the  realization 
of  our  human  estate,  that  of  being  burned 
with  fire  and  that  of  being  singed  with  sin 
must  be  reckoned. 

We  have  seen  that  the  soul  comes  to 
know  its  own  liberty  by  setting  itself  over 
against  all  else,  questioning  the  conventional 
order  of  the  ready-made  world  in  which  it 
finds  itself,  and  seeking  its  own  foundations 
on  which  to  build  the  structure  of  its  own 
life.     Such  an  alienation  is  a  necessary  step 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  3i 


on  the  road  to  individual  completeness ;  it 
is  the  true  self-assertion,  in  which  the  soul 
definitely  proposes  to  itself  to  go  about  its 
essential  business  of  ordering  its  own  life. 
But  new  discoveries  are  commonly  ex- 
aggerated ;  they  fill  the  field  of  vision  and 
exclude  all  else  from  sight.  When  the  soul 
of  youth  comes  to  feel  its  duty  to  be  an 
individual  self,  it  is  almost  certain  to  over- 
estimate the  amount  of  self-assertion  need- 
ful. The  necessary  assertion  of  self  in  con- 
trast with  the  external  world,  by  an  easy 
and  natural  exaggeration,  passes  over  into 
an  obstinate  refusal  to  learn  from  others  or 
be  guided  by  their  experience,  or  leads  to 
an  unwillingness  to  recognize  the  validity 
of  any  standard  of  obligation  outside  one's 
self.  This  is  self-will,  the  enthronement  of 
youth's  poor,  inexperienced  self,  as  the  only 
authority,  the  monarch  of  his  world.  And 
herein  is  sin. 

The  classical  picture  of  the  exaggerated 
self-will  of  youth  is,  of  course,  the  parable 
of  the  Prodigal  Son.  Its  present  interest 
for  us  lies  in  its  lively  depicting  of 
the  consequences  of  extravagant  self-will 


32       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Rioting  in  the  excesses  of  new-found  free- 
dom, the  Prodigal  doubtless  believed  that 
he  was  seeing  life  :  and  so  he  was — one 
part  of  it.  In  the  days  of  swine-feeding 
and  starvation  he  saw  the  rest.  And  then 
he  saw  the  whole  at  once.  And  this  is  the 
discovery  that  youth  is  to  make,  that  life  is 
a  whole,  all  its  parts  bound  inseparably  to- 
gether ;  that  every  deed  shall  have  its  effect 
on  the  doer,  every  act  shall  be  registered 
indelibly  upon  the  soul  of  him  that  does  it, 
there  to  bear  its  eternal  witness  to  what  he 
has  been  and  is.  No  warning  or  counsel, 
nothing  but  experience,  will  teach  this  lesson 
to  most  young  men.  "  Whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap,"  is  an 
authentic  statement  of  Holy  Writ ;  but  no 
youth  really  believes  it  until  he  begins  to 
reap  some  harvest  from  his  own  sowing. 
Hosts  of  youth,  going  forth  to  see  life  for 
themselves,  do  not  understand  that  the  fruit 
of  extravagance  is  want,  that  indulgence 
leads  to  weakness,  that  to  squander  money 
or  strength  or  character  must  bring  one,  by 
a  law  as  changeless  as  the  course  of  the  sun, 
to  poverty  of  resources,  or  power,  or  morals. 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  33 


It  often  takes  an  experience  nothing  short 
of  tragic  to  make  a  young  man  understand 
that  life  is  one,  that  act  and  consequence 
can  by  no  means  be  dissevered,  and  a  man's 
deeds  are  his  destiny.  This  experience  of 
law  is  the  discovery  of  life ;  and  the  youth 
who  has  learned  to  comprehend  life's  unity, 
and  include  both  deed  and  consequence, 
beginning  and  end,  in  one  view,  can  hence- 
forth "  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole." 

The  spiritual  experience  of  youth  in  the 
physical  period  of  adolescence  is  that  of  in- 
dividuation, the  setting  apart  of  the  self 
from  the  previous  environment ;  in  the 
second  or  mental  period,  it  is  character- 
istically that  of  illumination,  the  discovery 
of  the  meaning  and  value  of  activities  that 
one  has  chosen  for  himself.  This  illumina- 
tion brings  many  keen  disappointments. 
There  is  much  of  humiliation  and  self-re- 
proach in  it ;  much  also  of  wholesome  truth 
and  saving  self -discovery.  When  a  youth 
makes,  all  for  himself,  his  first  great  failure, 
he  begins  to  understand  himself  and  the 
world.  When  a  course  of  action  that  he 
deliberately  selected  leads  to  evil  and  dis- 


34       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

aster,  he  gains  a  practical  insight  into  the 
construction  of  the  moral  world  and  into  his 
own  moral  nature  as  well.  It  is  good  for 
youth  to  learn,  as  early  as  possible,  its  own 
weaknesses  and  limitations.  We  expect 
the  young  men  of  every  generation  to  re- 
new unceasingly  the  quest  of  the  hitherto 
unattainable  ;  but  that  quest  is  more  likely 
to  receive  a  substantial  reward  if  it  abjures 
at  the  outset  the  absurdly  impossible ; 
young  men  should  not  expect  to  mingle  fire 
and  water,  or  to  hasten  God^s  kingdom  by 
leaving  the  paths  of  rectitude. 

Nevertheless,  the  illumination  of  youth  is 
not  all  disillusion.  Even  the  fallen  Prodigal 
was  no  pessimist.  His  self -disco  very  re- 
vealed not  only  his  w^eakness  and  demerit, 
but  his  real  worth  as  well :  he  was  made 
for  something  better  than  a  swineherd. 
In  the  orientation  of  the  spirit,  youth  finds 
errors  to  be  corrected  and  perversities  to  be 
overcome  ;  but  many  of  its  hypotheses  are 
confirmed,  many  expectations  fulfilled, 
many  ideals  realized.  This  is  the  time 
when  the  main  outlines  of  knowledge  and 
conviction  are  finallv  established.     It  is  the 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  35 

period  of  college  life  for  those  who  go  to 
college,  of  learning  a  trade  or  business,  or 
trying  several,  for  those  who  do  not.  For 
all  it  is  a  time  of  venture  and  experiment, 
and  normal  youth  is  shrewd  to  heed  its 
lessons.  And  it  issues,  with  nearly  all,  in  a 
well-formed  notion  of  what  one  means  to  be 
and  do  in  life,  and  an  established  set  of 
ideas  and  principles  by  whose  light  he  ex- 
pects to  do  life's  work.  Just  as  early 
adolescence  shows  what  manner  of  physique 
a  man  is  to  have,  so  this  middle  period 
determines  and  reveals  the  mental  outfit 
with  which  he  is  to  go  through  the  world. 

The  third  act  in  the  drama  of  the  souPs 
development  through  the  years  of  youth 
presents  the  readjustment  of  the  young 
life,  now  distinctly  individualized,  to  the 
social  whole.  After  the  achievement  of 
freedom  and  the  discovery  of  life's  whole- 
ness, there  follows,  in  the  order  of  nature, 
a  new  adjustment,  freely  and  willingly 
made,  of  one's  self  to  one's  proper  sphere. 
How  does  the  soul  that  has  found  itself  find 
its  true  sphere  ? 

Nowhere    is    the  parable   more   true   to 


36       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

common  experience  than  in  the  nature  of  the 
Prodigal's  first  good  resolve.  He  sees  that 
he  is  out  of  place,  and  determines  to  return 
home.  There  may  be  homesickness  in  this, 
but  there  is  much  besides.  It  is  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  homing  instinct.  A  factor  of  the 
soul's  life  of  whose  existence  he  had  not 
been  aware  is  unveiled.  The  experience  of 
estrangement  leads  to  the  discovery  that 
there  is  that  within  the  soul  w^hich  tells 
a  man  unerringly  of  his  true  place  and 
destiny.  Youth's  first  free  years  are  guided 
by  a  weather-vane  that  seeks  a  favoring 
breeze  from  any  quarter  of  the  skies ;  then, 
some  day,  there  is  disclosed  to  the  wanderer, 
what  he  has  carried  all  along  unknowingly, 
life's  compass,  whose  needle  points  him 
faithfully  to  the  spot  where  he  belongs. 

In  other  words,  the  soul  of  youth  comes 
quickly  to  understand  that  utter  alienation 
is  impossible.  At  the  very  time  when  the 
assertion  of  self  becomes  most  pronounced, 
the  sense  of  the  social  value  of  that  self 
awakens.  The  youth  not  only  wants  to  be 
himself ;  he  wants  to  be  somebody  in  the 
world.     He    wishes   to   fill   a  place  among 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  37 

men.  Fleeing  from  the  limitations  of  child- 
hood, the  soul  may  choose  for  a  time  to 
dwell  apart ;  but  seclusion  is  not  its  per- 
manent abode — its  monasticism  is  transient ; 
out  of  his  isolation  the  youth  means,  like 
Moses  or  Paul,  to  bring  forth  a  personality 
equipped  for  the  doing  of  deeds  in  the 
world.  The  soul  that  has  secured  its  own 
rights  of  freedom  and  gone  apart,  soon 
swings  about  to  demand  a  place  in  the 
social  body ;  and  the  social  impulse  becomes 
the  controlling  motive. 

All  progress,  we  are  told,  is  by  differentia- 
tion and  integration.  It  starts  with  some- 
thing simple.  In  that  simple  thing,  what- 
ever it  may  be — the  cell  that  contains 
the  germ  of  the  plant  or  animal  life,  or 
the  family  that  contains  the  germ  of  social 
and  national  life — divisions  soon  appear. 
Different  parts  are  set  in  opposition  to 
each  other,  and  that  which  was  one  be- 
comes several  or  many.  The  next  step 
in  the  development  is  the  combination 
of  these  many  parts  into  a  unity  more 
complex  and  on  a  higher  plane  than  the 
simple   unit    with   which   the   development 


38       EDUCATIONAL  EVAXGELISM 

began ;  each  of  the  different  parts  now 
functioning  as  a  specialized  organ  or  factor 
in  the  common  life.  Thus  progress  always 
works  with  two  hands,  creating  differences 
where  there  was  likeness,  specialized  organs 
or  occupations  where  none  existed,  with  the 
one,  and  with  the  other  combining  these 
various  distinct  elements  into  more  complex 
unities  that  do  a  higher  work. 

This  law  of  progress  has  a  twofold  illus- 
tration in  the  development  of  the  youthful 
soul,  first  in  the  inner  experience  of  the  soul 
itself,  and  secondly  in  its  social  relations. 

At  the  beginning  of  adolescence,  the 
youth  becomes  estranged  not  only  from 
his  parents  and  the  environment  of  his 
childhood,  but  from  his  childish  self.  The 
self  of  youth  sets  itself  over  against  the  self 
of  childhood.  He  is  not  what  he  was. 
There  is  a  differentiation.  He  clearly 
recognizes  the  new,  and  is  likely  to  de- 
spise the  old.  There  is  often  a  painful 
antagonism  within  the  soul  between  the 
self  of  childhood  and  the  self  of  youth. 
But  this  division  is  to  yield  to  the  forces 
that  make  for  correlation.     The  self  of  man- 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  39 


hood  combines  the  essential  characteristics 
of  youth  with  those  of  earlier  years.  The 
man  needs  the  independence  and  self-reliance 
of  youth  ;  just  as  imperatively  he  needs  the 
child's  docility,  trust  in  powers  outside  him- 
self, and  sense  of  participation  in  the  life  of  a 
social  whole.  Self -estrangement  is  followed 
by  self-adjustment  to  a  larger  sphere.  Child- 
hood and  youth,  with  all  their  differences 
and  antagonisms,  are  embraced  in  a  higher 
unity  in  the  mature  soul.  That  is  why 
every  youth,  and  every  man  who  tarries  on 
life's  journey  at  the  point  of  youthful  self- 
will,  finds  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  closed 
against  him  until  he  turns  and  becomes  as  a 
little  child. 

In  outward  relations,  the  antisocial  in- 
stincts of  early  adolescence  lead  the  youth 
to  assert  his  independence  of  social  control, 
whether  represented  by  his  parents  or  by 
institutions  like  the  school  or  Sunday-school. 
But  this  estrangement  is  only  the  first  step  in 
a  new  line  of  progress  ;  its  complement  is  the 
reconciliation  that  is  to  follow.  For  in  the 
later  years  of  adolescence,  social  instincts 
and  forces  become  dominant  again.     This 


40       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

is  the  social  period,  and  the  main  thing  now 
is  the  attainment,  by  the  growing  soul,  of  a 
social  will.  The  Prodigal  came  to  it  by 
way  of  reconciliation  with  his  father.  It 
makes  little  difference  who  the  parties  or 
what  the  circumstances  are,  if  only  the  in- 
dependent, self-assertive  will  of  the  wander- 
ing young  soul  comes  to  reconcile  itself  to 
another  will.  With  the  majority,  the  new 
adjustment  is  not  made  by  a  return  to 
childhood's  home  and  condition ;  it  is  more 
often  by  entrance  into  a  new  home  of  one's 
own.  In  either  case,  it  is  the  homing  in- 
stinct that  is  at  work  making  one  seek  for 
the  place  that  shall  be  permanently  his ;  the 
union  of  his  will  with  that  of  another  is  as 
necessary  to  the  founding  of  the  new  home 
as  to  the  return  to  the  old.  The  Prodigal 
was  saved  by  a  new  love  for  his  father. 
The  love  of  a  young  man  and  a  young 
woman  brings  about  the  same  kind  of  ad- 
justment between  free  persons,  the  same  de- 
nial of  self,  the  same  attainment  of  a  social 
will.  The  chief  fascination  of  the  drama  of 
youth,  for  most  persons,  lies  in  the  story  of 
this  readjustment,  this  reconciliation  of  an 


THE  DEAMA  OF  YOUTH  41 

independent,  self-willed  creature,  who  has 
cut  loose  from  the  ties  of  his  early  home,  to 
his  place  in  life,  with  the  acceptance  of  social 
obligations  and  new  ties  that  bind  more 
closely  than  the  old — that  is,  the  story  of 
man's  love. 

But  while  love  is  the  most  potent  social- 
izer  of  errant  youth,  it  is  not  the  only  one. 
Every  young  man  who  succeeds  in  business, 
every  one  who  puts  intelligence  and  con- 
science into  his  obligations  as  a  citizen,  must 
attain,  in  some  degree,  the  social  will.  It 
may  be  attained  also  through  the  simple  ac- 
ceptance of  duty,  wherever  duty  lies.  If 
one  has  rebelled  against  his  obligations, 
sought  to  find  an  easier  pathway  of  life, 
been  fretful  and  discontented  because  of  his 
lot,  blamed  God  and  hated  man  because  he 
could  not  have  his  own  way  in  the  world ; 
when  he  returns  to  duty,  accepts  his  lot,  de- 
termines to  make  the  best  of  it  and  get  what 
satisfaction  he  can  out  of  filling  conscien- 
tiously the  place  assigned  him,  he  attains 
that  indispensable  social  will  that  marks  the 
real  maturity  of  the  soul.  Eeligion  also, 
with  its  lofty  altruism,  its  "  Thou  shalt  love 


42       EDUCATIONAL  EVAKGELISM 

thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  and  its  call  to  sac- 
rifice, makes  its  distinctive  and  powerful 
appeal  to  the  social  instincts  of  the  soul.  In 
this  social  period  of  youth,  if  nowhere  else, 
religion  and  nature  work  in  the  same  direc- 
tion and  for  the  same  end.  And  when  Love, 
Duty  and  Religion  unite  to  do  a  work 
which  nature  herself  is  striving  to  perform, 
the  youth  must  have  wandered  far  indeed 
if  that  threefold  cord  is  not  strong  enough 
to  bring  him  to  his  home. 

If,  then,  the  meaning  of  the  action  that 
takes  place  within  the  soul  of  youth  is  to  be 
stated  in  general  terms  and  comprehended 
in  a  sentence,  it  is  this :  IS'o  man  can  be  a 
full-grown  man,  filling  a  man's  place  in  a 
family,  in  society,  the  state,  or  the  kingdom 
of  God,  until  he  knows  himself  as  a  distinct 
individuality,  a  free  person  choosing  his  own 
ways  for  himself  by  the  light  of  his  own 
knowledge  and  experience ;  but  neither  is  a 
man  full-grown  while  he  stands  alone  in  iso- 
lated self-will ;  only  as  he  reconciles  himself 
to  his  place,  his  will  to  the  family  will,  the 
social  will,  the  will  of  the  state,  the  will  of 


THE  DRAMA  OF  YOUTH  43 

God,  and  freely  chooses  for  himself  the 
things  that  these  wills  declare  to  be  best  for 
him, — only  so  can  his  soul  reach  full  ma- 
turity. 

Because  the  inner  movement  of  the  spirit 
in  its  development  turns  upon  itself  in  this 
manner,  finding  its  completion  in  the  social 
whole  from  which  it  set  out,  it  is  a  genuine 
dramatic  action.  But  to  forbid  or  hinder 
this  action  at  any  point  of  its  progress  be- 
fore it  is  complete  is  to  turn  the  drama  of 
youth  into  a  farce,  or  worse.  Much  of  the 
sorrow  of  the  world  seems  to  come  from 
the  fact  that  children  grow  away  from 
parents,  home  and  friends ;  the  empty  bird's 
nest  from  which  the  little  birds  have  flown 
must  do  service  to  the  sentiment  of  every 
generation.  But  the  sorrow^  is  not  because 
of  the  growth  ;  to  be  the  father  or  mother 
of  strong  men  is  no  cause  for  grief.  It  is 
the  arrested  development  of  souls  that  fills 
the  world  with  anguish.  There  are  some 
men  who  never  outgrow  their  childhood  ; 
never  develop  wills  of  their  own  beyond 
the  point  of  insisting  on  childish  whims ; 
always   have  to  depend  upon  the  stronger 


44       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

and  wiser  will  of  a  brother  or  wife  or  friend 
to  decide  all  important  concerns  for  them. 
And  there  are  many — it  is  the  sorest  grief 
on  earth  that  there  are  so  many — who  stop 
growing  at  the  point  of  youth's  estrange- 
ment. They  cut  loose  from  parents  and 
home,  from  social  standards  and  ideals,  and 
go  through  life  in  stubborn  self-will.  These 
are  the  cases  that  are  sad ;  for  only  in  such 
can  the  power  of  sin  have  its  perfect  work. 
They  are  the  unnatural,  abnormal  ones ;  it 
is  clean  against  nature  to  stop  there  /  repre- 
hensible, too,  for  they  cut  their  spiritual  de- 
velopment short  by  their  own  choice.  The 
soul  that  knows  estrangement  should  never 
be  allowed  to  rest  until  it  knows  reconcilia- 
tion also.  Let  the  action  be  complete.  God 
never  meant  a  man  to  spend  his  life  in  lonely 
alienation  from  his  kind  and  from  Himself. 
Christ  did  not  leave  the  Prodigal  in  the  far 
country. 


CHAPTER  III 
The  Genesis  of  Christian  Character 

Youth  gets  its  fascinating  interest  and 
its  critical  significance  from  this  dramatic 
action  in  the  soul  that  we  have  been  review- 
ing. This  action  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  in- 
ner action  by  which  a  soul  achieves  its  true 
station  and  degree.  Its  theme  is  the  trans- 
formation of  the  child,  who  is  a  dependent, 
subordinate  being,  into  a  man,  who  is  an  in- 
dependent, coordinate  being.  First,  to  make 
the  child  an  individual,  to  take  his  included, 
dependent  life  out  of  the  family  unity  and 
make  him  a  separately  effective  personality ; 
then  to  re-socialize  him  on  a  higher  plane, 
to  embrace  his  individuality  in  the  larger 
coordination  of  society, — that  is  the  aim, 
and  the  course,  of  the  dramatic  action  within 
the  soul  of  youth. 

In  the  course  of  this  action,  the  youth  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  nearly  all  the 
critical  questions  that  affect  human  well-be- 
45 


46       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ing.  Every  personal  problem  from  those  of 
health  and  strength  to  those  of  ideals  and 
pursuits,  must  be  met ;  so  must  all  the  ques- 
tions of  social  relations  from  that  of  obedi- 
ence to  parents  to  those  of  citizenship,  mar- 
riage and  religion.  These  questions  overlap 
and  interblend  so  that  no  one  of  them  ever 
stands  wholly  by  itself  or  is  settled  alone  ; 
nor  is  the  discussion  of  one  of  them  likely 
to  be  very  profitable  unless  the  presence 
and  influence  of  the  others  be  recognized. 
In  the  following  discussions,  the  focus  of  at- 
tention is  the  religious  problem,  treated  not 
as  a  thing  by  itself  but  as  an  element  in  the 
normal  experience  of  youth. 

The  religious  problem  appears  to  the 
youth  in  myriad  forms,  but  is  ahvays  the 
same  in  essence.  The  youth  must  somehow 
settle  his  relations  with  the  higher  law,  the 
moral  order,  the  spiritual  and  unseen  world; 
in  a  word,  with  God.  Some  settlement 
of  this  question  every  youth  must  make. 
We  of  course  regard  the  Christian  so- 
lution of  the  religious  problem  as  the 
only  satisfactory  one.  We  shall  see  that 
religious   experience  cannot  possibly  mean 


THE  CHEISTIAN  CHAEACTEE      47 

the  same  thing  for  all ;  but  the  only  re- 
ligious ideal  that  we  find  tolerable  is 
that  of  Christian  discipleship,  the  settlement 
of  one's  higher  relationships  on  the  Christian 
plan.  The  religious  problem  of  youth,  then, 
in  our  view,  becomes  the  problem  of  finding 
a  way  for  the  youth  into  the  Christian  life, 
of  winning  a  Christian  faith  and  character. 
The  Christian  character  which  we  desire 
to  see  our  youth  attain  is  everywhere  recog- 
nized as  the  efilorescence  of  a  Christian 
spirit,  the  manifestation  of  an  inner  life. 
The  question  of  the  ways  and  means  of  at- 
taining a  Christian  character  is  therefore  at 
bottom  the  question  of  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  life  in  the  soul.  This  beginning 
is  itself  everywhere  regarded  as  in  some 
sense  a  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  impar- 
tation  to  a  human  being  of  a  spiritual  life 
that  draws  from  the  boundless  deep  of 
Deity.  But  under  what  circumstances  does 
the  Spirit  most  commonly  perform  this 
work?  Through  what  outward  means  or 
agencies  is  that  quality  of  spiritual  life 
which  produces  Christian  character  im- 
parted to  the  soul  of  man  ? 


48       EDUCATIONAL  EVAiSGELlSM 

The  prevailing  ideas  on  this  subject  are  to 
be  traced  to  four  principal  sources.  We 
may  pass  over  the  first  three  with  brief 
mention ;  but  the  fourth  is  so  related  to  the 
development  of  youth  as  to  demand  more 
special  attention. 

The  first  in  order  is  the  sacramental  sys- 
tem of  the  Catholic  churches.  According 
to  this  view,  the  renewing  Spirit  is  associ- 
ated with  the  water  of  baptism,  and  regen- 
eration is  wrought  by  a  sacramental  grace 
bestowed  in  this  rite.  What  is  needful  to 
insure  the  inception  of  a  Christian  life  is 
that  one  shall  be  placed,  by  birth  or  other- 
wise, within  the  circle  of  the  sacramental 
influences  that  commence  with  baptism ; 
within  that  circle,  which  is  of  course 
identified  with  the  visible  Church,  and  there 
alone,  there  is  renewal  and  salvation  for  all. 
It  is  to  be  expected  that  the  life  imparted 
to  the  soul  in  baptism  will  be  from  the  first 
the  determinative  factor  in  the  formation  of 
character ;  but  it  is  to  be  made  intelligent, 
given  a  consciousness  of  itself,  taught  to 
understand  its  own  nature  and  aims,  through 
the  knowledge  of  the   truth  conveyed  by 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CHAEACTEE      49 


catechetical  instruction  ;  and  it  is  to  become 
the  certain  and  permanent  possession  of  the 
soul  only  by  confirmation,   and    to   be  de- 
veloped   to   full   formative    power    by    the 
sacrament  of  communion.     This  view  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  life  within  the 
soul  is  manifestly  a  formal  and  institutional 
view.     In  accordance  with  the  claims  of  the 
ecclesiastical  system  within  which  it  was  de- 
veloped, it  makes  the  reception  of  the  new 
life  conditional  on  connection  with  the  out- 
ward  institution   of    religion,   the   Church. 
Those  who  reject  it  and  wonder  at  its  con- 
tinued power  in  the  world  are  to  remember 
that  the  Lord's  arm   is  not  shortened  that 
he  cannot  save  by  means  of  forms  and  insti- 
tutions as  well  as  without  them  ;  though  not 
dependent  upon   them,  he  is  surely  free  to 
use  them  ;  and  whether,  or  to  what  extent, 
he  does  make  use  of  them  for  the  generation 
of  Christian  character  in  human  souls,  is  not 
a   question   of   doctrine   to    be  decided   by 
argument,  but  a  question  of  fact  to  be  set- 
tled by  observation. 

From  this  conception  of  the  genesis  of  the 
Christian  life  the  Reformed  churches  did  not 


50       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

at  first  break  away  ;  but  a  radical  modifica- 
tion of  it  was  introduced  by  a  simple  change 
of  emphasis.  Without  explicitly  denying 
the  efficacy  of  sacramental  grace  bestowed 
in  baptism,  they  placed  more  emphasis  upon 
the  truth,  as  summed  up  in  the  creed  and 
catechism,  as  the  means  whereby  the  Spirit 
lays  the  foundation  of  a  Christian  character. 
If  the  Eeformation  be  regarded,  as  it  surely 
may  be,  as  a  part  of  the  great  intellectual 
awakening  known  as  the  Renaissance,  it  will 
appear  that  nothing  could  be  more  natural 
than  this  increased  emphasis  on  the  power 
of  divine  truth  to  save  the  soul.  This  was 
the  common  inspiration  of  the  reformers. 
The  Greek  Testament  of  Erasmus,  the  Ger- 
man Bible  of  Luther,  and  all  the  great 
series  of  confessions  and  catechisms  that 
culminated  in  those  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  point  to  this  emphasis  among 
Protestants  on  the  truth  as  the  chief  means 
for  the  Spirit's  renewal  of  the  soul.  The 
practical  outcome  of  this  view  is  to  reduce 
dependence  on  religious  institutions  to  the 
minimum ;  the  best  that  human  agencies 
can  accomplish  toward  the  impartation  of 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER      51 

the  Christian  life  is  to  get  the  truth  into  the 
mind  of  the  growing  child  or  the  uncon- 
verted man,  trusting  the  Spirit  to  work 
within  him  and  sanctify  him  by  the  truth. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  there  came  a 
complete  departure  from  this  entire  mode  of 
conceiving  the  Spirit's  work.  Another 
theory  of  the  Spirit's  operation,  requiring 
correspondingly  different  methods  in  relig- 
ious work,  was  brought  forward  by  the 
Great  Awakening  of  1740.  By  this  theory 
regeneration  was  conceived  as  consisting  es- 
sentially in  a  change  of  one's  tastes  or  senti- 
ments. It  was  defined  as  the  communication 
of  a  new  spiritual  sense  or  taste,  or  as  "  a 
change  in  the  balance  of  the  sensibilities." 
That  a  marked  change  in  taste  and  sentiment 
accompanies  the  experience  of  adult  conver- 
sion is  beyond  question  ;  if  this  change  is 
itself  the  essential  element  of  regeneration, 
then  it  would  seem  that  appeals  to  the  senti- 
ments, affections  or  emotions  would  be  more 
likely  to  promote  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  life  than  any  other  means.  On 
this  doctrinal  presumption  the  methods  of 
the    great    revival    were    developed.     The 


52       EDUCATIONAL  EYAXGELISM 

psychology  of  that  day  made  no  distinction 
between  the  will  and  the  sensibilities,  and 
so  the  distinctive  method  of  the  revival 
system  became  an  appeal  to  the  will  that 
was  emotional  in  character.  It  was  held 
that  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life  in 
the  soul  was  normally  attended  by  a  great 
awakening  of  the  feelings,  was  perhaps  de- 
pendent on  such  an  awakening,  and  that  re- 
generation must  be  manifested  by  a  radical 
change  of  inclination  or  disposition.  A 
conscious  experience  of  this  kind  became 
the  only  acceptable  evidence  of  regenera- 
tion, and  without  regeneration,  thus  at- 
tested, men  were  not  considered  fit  for 
membership  in  the  church. 

And  so  the  Christian  life  was  expected  to 
begin,  not  in  the  silent  use  of  the  truth  by 
the  Spirit,  but  in  circumstances  that  would 
stir  the  religious  feelings  to  their  depths. 
These  circumstances  were  provided  by  the 
revival  meeting,  which  was  an  institution 
expressly  designed  to  produce  such  a  dis- 
turbance of  the  customary  complacent 
equilibrium  of  the  soul  that  the  desired 
change   in  the  balance  of  the  sensibilities 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER      53 


raigbt  easily  come  about.  The  revival 
methods  that  began  with  the  Wesleys, 
Whitefield  and  Edwards  were  continued 
after  their  death  with  undiminished  popular- 
ity. The  approved  way  of  becoming  a 
Christian  was  to  be  converted  in  a  pro- 
tracted meeting.  Attention  was  fixed  upon 
a  certain  type  of  mental  agitation  as  the 
proper  evidence  of  the  Spirit's  work  ;  in- 
sistence on  an  experience  of  this  kind  made 
it  easy  to  undervalue  early  instruction  in 
the  Christian  faith  and  morals;  the  older 
catechetical  system  died  out ;  the  Wesleyan 
movement  broke  away  from  the  confirma- 
tion system  of  the  historic  churches  ;  infant 
baptism  was  neglected,  and  the  bodies  that 
reject  it  altogether  increased  with  great 
rapidity  ;  institutional  claims  were  belittled, 
and  the  personal  contact  of  every  individual 
soul  with  Deity  in  the  Spirit  was  magnified  ; 
and  incidentally,  no  place  was  left  for  a 
child  in  the  Church  of  God,  because  the 
Christian  life  was  held  to  begin  in  emo- 
tions that  have  no  place  in  the  soul  of  a 
child. 

It  was  in  reaction  against  the  extreme  in- 


54     educatio:n^al  evangelism 

dividualism  of  this  system  that  the  modern 
doctrine  of  the  genesis  of  Christian  char- 
acter by  nurture  first  appeared.  The  logic 
of  the  situation  demanded  a  powerful  re- 
assertion  of  the  corporate,  organic  elements 
of  the  religious  life.  This  was  made  by 
Horace  Bushnell  in  his  epoch-making  book 
entitled  "  Christian  Nurture."  The  doctrine 
of  this  book,  although  set  forth  in  terms  of 
thought  belonging  to  the  era  before  the  rise 
of  evolutionary  theories,  fits  in  so  aptly 
with  the  newer  ways  of  thinking  that  it  has 
been  generally  accepted  wherever  the  evolu- 
tionary philosophy  has  gone.  Its  agreement 
with  the  general  tendency  of  the  last  half- 
century  to  look  for  vital  rather  than  me- 
chanical processes,  and  to  believe  that  things 
come  to  be  what  they  are  by  growth  rather 
than  by  manufacture,  has  made  it  very  pop- 
ular. The  former  view,  along  with  the  re- 
vival system  founded  upon  it,  has  suffered  a 
corresponding  loss  of  popularity ;  so  that 
among  the  churches  that  reject  the  sacra- 
mentarian  theory,  the  common  expectation 
of  our  time  seems  to  be  that  the  Christian 
life  shall  begin  in  some  kind  of  process  of 


THE  CHEISTIAK  CHARACTEE      5ij 


Christian  nurture.  The  doctrine  and  metli- 
ods  of  Christian  nurture  must  therefore  be 
somewhat  carefully  examined. 

To  the  popular  mind  the  doctrine  of 
Christian  nurture  is  adequately  represented 
by  the  watchword,  "Growth,  not  conver- 
sion." Christian  nurture  is  understood  to 
be  that  method  of  ordering  religious  activ- 
ities which  looks  for  men  to  be  made  Chris- 
tians by  a  process  of  growth  rather  than  by 
a  crisis  of  conversion.  But  that  watchword 
involves  a  serious  confusion  of  thought.  It 
is  the  same  confusion  that  has  beset  the  evo- 
lutionary doctrines  all  along — the  persistent 
notion  that  the  discovery  of  the  successive 
steps  by  which  a  thing  has  reached  its  pres- 
ent state  makes  it  unnecessary  to  account  for 
its  origin.  When  the  higher  forms  of  life 
were  found  to  have  developed  from  lower, 
and  these  from  lower  still,  there  were  those 
who  thought  that  the  question  of  the  origin 
of  life  had  been  disposed  of;  it  had  not,  in 
truth,  been  touched.  I^either  has  the  ques- 
tion of  the  origin  of  the  Christian  life  in  the 
soul  been  touched  when  it  is  seen  that  a 
Christian  character  is  normally  attained  by 


56       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

a  slow  process  of  growth  rather  than  by  a 
sudden  revolution  in  conversion. 

To  get  rid  of  this  confusion,  we  must  re- 
member that  Christian  nurture  is  a  partic- 
ular method  of  dealing  with  growing  souls 
which  is  based  on  a  particular  theory  of  the 
genesis  of  the  Christian  life  within  the  soul. 
The  theory  governs  the  method.  The  pri- 
mary question  for  Christian  nurture  is  not, 
as  so  many  seem  to  think,  as  to  the  most 
successful  ways  of  feeding  and  guiding  the 
soul's  growth  ;  the  first  question  is  as  to 
how  that  particular  kind  of  spiritual  life 
that  produces  Christian  character  is  to  get 
into  the  soul.  In  the  discussions  of  this  sub- 
ject, it  seems  frequently  to  be  forgotten  that 
life  must  originate  before  it  can  grow.  The 
assumption  appears  to  be  that  if  a  child  is  sub- 
jected to  a  properly  devised  course  of  relig- 
ious instruction  and  training,  the  particular 
quality  of  spiritual  life  necessary  to  the  pro- 
duction of  Christian  character  can  be 
trusted  to  slip  in  unawares  at  some  point  or 
other,  or  be  produced  by  spontaneous  gen- 
eration ! 

Let  us  not  mistake  the  real  point.     To 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER      57 

take  Bushnell's  thesis  "  that  the  child  is  to 
grow  up  a  Christian,  and  never  know  him- 
self as  being  otherwise,"  as  a  statement  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christian  nurture  is  super- 
ficial in  the  extreme.  That  thesis  is  only  the 
application  of  a  doctrine  wrought  out  by  him 
with  the  most  elaborate  care.  The  doctrine 
itself  develops  a  new  conception  of  the  man- 
ner of  the  Spirit's  entrance  into  the  soul  to 
kindle  the  divine  life  there.  It  is  founded 
on  the  fact  that  there  is  a  kind  of  organic 
connection  in  character  between  parents  and 
children.  Moral  and  spiritual  qualities  are, 
in  a  measure,  transmitted  by  heredity ;  but, 
still  more  effectively,  the  workings  of  the 
family  life  in  its  essential  unity  of  temper, 
spirit,  atmosphere,  ideals  and  purposes,  tend 
to  reproduce  the  moral  and  spiritual  like- 
ness of  the  parents  in  their  children.  The 
family  is  an  institution  of  such  a  nature  that 
by  processes  analogous  to  those  of  organic 
growth,  without  conscious  design  on  the 
part  of  the  parents,  it  will  form  the  char- 
acter of  the  child  for  good  or  evil.  Because 
of  hereditary  influences,  and  because  the 
family  is  the  supreme  environment  of  the 


58       EDUCATIONAL  EVAXGELISM 

child  during  its  most  plastic  years,  an  en- 
vironment, too,  that  works  with  unparalleled 
eiScacy  to  mold  the  infant  character  to  its 
own  standards,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
spirit  and  character  of  the  child  will  be  de- 
termined, almost  infallibly,  by  those  of  the 
family. 

Therefore  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
growing  soul  of  the  child  who  springs  from 
Christian  stock  and  unfolds  his  life  in  a 
Christian  atmosphere  will  exhibit  from  the 
first,  and  more  and  more  distinctly  as  the 
years  advance,  the  Christian  character,  pass- 
ing from  a  Christian  childhood  to  a  Chris- 
tian youth,  and  on  to  a  Christian  manhood 
by  a  natural  development.  And  the  reason 
for  this  expectation  is  not  that  the  divine 
life  will  slip  in  unawares  at  some  stage  of 
the  soul's  growth,  but  that  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  the  wise  God  should  fail  to  make 
use  of  an  agency  so  effective  as  this  vital 
connection  of  child  and  parent  to  further 
the  work  of  redemption.  The  power  of  this 
connection  in  transmitting  the  taint  of  sin 
from  generation  to  generation  has  been  long 
recognized  ;  it  is  little  short  of  blasphemy  to 


THE  CHEISTIAN  CHAEACTER      59 

suppose  that  God  will  allow  it  to  work  only 
for  the  propagation  of  sin.  "  The  only  sup- 
position which  honors  God,"  says  Bushnell, 
"  is  that  the  organic  unity  of  which  I  speak 
was  ordained  originally  for  the  nurture  of 
holy  virtue  in  the  beginning  of  the  soul's 
history,  and  that  Christianity  or  redemp- 
tion must  of  necessity  take  possession  of  the 
abused  vehicle  and  sanctify  it  for  its  own 
merciful  uses."  There  is  nothing  mechan- 
ical or  compulsory  about  it.  Christian  char- 
acter does  not  follow  necessarily  from  being 
born  to  a  place  in  a  Christian  family  ;  not 
every  child  of  Christian  parents  will  become 
a  Christian  by  the  process  of  nurture.  But 
this  is  to  be  the  general  expectation.  The 
presumption  is  that  the  Spirit  of  God  will 
work  along  the  lines  of  vital  connection  to 
reproduce  in  the  children  the  Christian 
character  of  their  parents,  with  as  much  of 
fidelity  and  certitude  as,  by  the  same  vital 
connection,  their  mental  and  physical  char- 
acteristics are  made  to  reappear. 

Previous  theories  of  the  genesis  of  the 
Christian  life  had  ignored  this  vital  connec- 
tion.    But  it  is  evident,  on  reflection,  that 


60       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGP^LISM 

the  most  natural  line  of  approach  for  the 
Spirit  of  God  to  the  soul  of  a  child  in  a 
Christian  home  is  through  those  bonds  of 
connection  that  lie  deeper  than  conscious- 
ness and  bind  life  to  life  in  the  hidden  mys- 
tery of  being.  The  testimony  of  observa- 
tion is  that  God  does  not,  as  a  rule,  bring 
the  child  of  Christian  parents  to  himself 
either  by  means  of  the  truth  taught  in  the 
catechism  or  by  a  miracle  of  grace  in  con- 
version, but  by  a  vital  process  in  which  the 
moral  and  religious  qualities  of  that  circle 
in  which  the  child  originates  are  assimilated 
into  his  character.  The  Spirit  finds  his  Avay 
into  the  soul  of  such  a  one,  not,  most  natu- 
rally, through  the  instructed  mind,  or  the 
aroused  emotions,  or  new  resolutions  of  the 
will ;  the  Spirit  is  life,  and  moves  along 
those  deeper,  stronger  lines  of  connection 
which  are  not  always  present  to  the  con- 
sciousness through  intelligence  and  feeling, 
but  are  always  present  to  the  soul  as  essen- 
tial and  vital. 

And  so,  while  the  sacramentarian  theory 
traces  the  genesis  of  Christian  character  to 
the  Spirit's  use  of  the  rite  of  baptism,  and 


THE  CHEISTIAN  CHAEACTER      61 

the  Reformed  theory  to  the  Spirit's  use  of 
the  truth,  and  the  evangelical  theory  to  the 
Spirit's  use  of  an  emotional  awakening,  the 
theory  of  Christian  nurture  traces  it  to  the 
Spirit's  use  of  the  necessary,  vital  relation- 
ship of  child  and  parents.  It  looks  for  the 
child's  Christian  life  to  originate  in  the  hid- 
den, vital  connection  of  his  spirit  with  the 
spirit  of  a  household  that  is  leavened  by  the 
presence  of  Christ.  Christ,  being  the  spirit 
and  atmosphere  of  the  home,  will  pass  into 
the  soul  of  the  child  along  those  lines  of 
necessary  spiritual  relationship  by  which  all 
other  family  traits  are  imparted.  Christian 
nurture  may  expect  much  from  correct 
instruction  and  wise  training  ;  but  Christian 
nurture  is  not  instruction  or  training ;  it  is 
the  impartation  and  development  of  life  in 
ways  concordant  with  life's  lofty  power  and 
fathomless  mystery.  And  the  highest  life 
can  be  thus  imparted  because  the  grace  of 
God  is  pledged  to  make  use  of  the  organic 
relations  of  human  spirits  for  purposes  of 
redemption. 

This  conception  of  the  theory  of  Chris- 
tian nurture  reveals  at  once  its  power  and 


62       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

its  limitations  as  a  method.  Because  it 
works  by  vital  means  and  at  the  very  fount 
of  life,  it  can  do  almost  everything  for  the 
child.  But  because  it  can  do  its  work  only 
through  the  vital  ties  that  bind  child  to 
parent,  it  is  rigidly  limited  to  the  home 
circle.  It  has  no  other  possible  sphere. 
The  prerequisites  of  Christian  nurture  are  a 
Christian  parentage  for  the  child  and  a 
Christian  household  in  which  he  shall  pass 
his  early,  plastic  years.  There  are  no 
methods  of  Christian  nurture,  but  only  one 
method, — that  of  the  wholesome,  earnest, 
devout  family  life,  enveloping  the  child 
from  his  earliest  days  ;  *'  the  loveliness  of  a 
good  life,  the  repose  of  faith,  the  confidence 
of  righteous  expectation,  the  sacred  and 
cheerful  liberty  of  the  Spirit — all  glowing 
about  the  young  soul  as  a  warm  and  genial 
nurture,  and  forming  in  it,  by  methods  that 
are  silent  and  imperceptible,  a  spirit  of  duty 
and  religious  obedience  to  God." 

Aside  from  heredity,  the  formative  in- 
fluences of  the  parental  life  upon  the  child 
are  of  two  classes :  those  exercised  con- 
sciously, with  express  design  to  benefit  the 


THE  CHEISTIA:N^  CHARACTEE      63 

child,  and  those  exercised  unconsciously, 
without  thought  of  their  effect  upon  him. 
It  needs  but  little  thought  to  show  that  of 
these  two  sets  of  influences  the  second  is 
vastly  the  more  important.  Lessons, 
counsel,  training,  correction,  given  with  the 
intent  of  guiding  the  child  into  the  right 
way  are  all  important,  but  not  so  important 
as  the  atmosphere  of  the  home  life.  In  the 
ordering  of  the  household,  the  conduct  of 
family  affairs,  the  temper  habitually  dis- 
played, the  language  commonly  used,  the 
sincerity  and  openness  or  the  deception  and 
distrust  of  the  parents  toward  each  other, 
the  genuineness  and  simplicity  of  their 
religious  faith  or  its  formality  and  factitious- 
ness, — in  these  and  a  thousand  similar  things 
the  real  character  and  spirit  of  the  parents 
is  shown  without  reserve,  and  is  unde- 
signedly but  indelibly  impressed  upon 
their  children.  Christian  parents  ought  to 
make  it  their  deliberate  design  to  lead  their 
children  to  Christ ;  but  their  designs  should 
always  keep  the  fact  in  view  that  the  in- 
fluence that  they  unconsciously  wield  is 
sure  to  have  more  effect  upon  the  children's 


64       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

characters  than  any  of  their  conscious 
efforts  to  do  them  good.  It  all  comes 
back  at  last  to  what  the  parents  are. 

Consequently  there  can  be  no  possible 
method  devised  for  supplying  Christian 
nurture  to  those  whose  parents  and  homes 
are  not  genuinely  Christian  in  spirit  and 
character.  The  conditions  on  which  Chris- 
tian nurture  depends  for  the  inception  of 
the  Christian  life  in  the  soul  are  wholly 
wanting  with  these.  Nothing  can  take  the 
place  of  daily  Christian  living  in  the  home, 
or  do  what  the  home  fails  to  do.  There  is 
no  substitute  for  a  Christian  father  and 
mother.  Others  may  give  the  children 
some  of  their  instruction  and  inspiration, 
their  training  and  education ;  but  others 
can  give  them  Christian  nurture  only  as 
they  would  give  them  bodily  nurture,  by 
taking  them  entirely  away  from  the  un- 
faithful parents  and  placing  them  in  a  truly 
Christian  home.  They  are  much  deluded 
who  imagine  that  the  development  of  the 
organized  forms  of  institutional  religious 
life  can  make  good  the  lack  of  Christian 
homes.     Christian  nurture  is  no  function  of 


THE  CHEISTIAN  CHARACTER      65 


the  church;  it  is  not  an  affair  of  Sunday- 
schools,  Young  People's  Societies,  cate- 
chetical classes,  or  anything  of  that  kind.  A 
church  or  Sunday-school  cannot  give  nur- 
ture ;  for  the  same  reason  that  a  Home  can- 
not be  a  home.^  The  Church  must  do  its 
best  to  bring  those  of  unchristian  antece- 
dents and  surroundings  into  the  Christian 
life ;  but  the  one  thing  which  it  cannot  give 
them,  the  one  method  on  which  it  must  not 
count,  is  Christian  nurture. 

Another  limitation  of  Christian  nurture, 
in  which  we  are  soon  to  see  a  great  signifi- 
cance, is  that  its  chief  work  must  be  done  at 
the  beginning  of  the  child's  life.  It  has 
been  remarked  that  one  of  BushnelPs  most 
remarkable  anticipations  of  the  scientific 
conclusions  of  our  own  time  is  this :  "  The 
most  important  age  for  Christian  nurture  is 
the  first.  .  .  .  More,  as  a  general  fact,  is 
done,  or  lost  by  neglect  of  doing,  on  a 
child's  immortality,  in  the  first  three  years 

Un  "Timothy's  Quest,"  Mrs.  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin 
shows  what  a  difEerence  the  capital  letter  makes  to  a 
child.  "  He  was  very  clear  on  one  point,  and  that  was 
that  he  would  never  be  taken  alive  and  put  in  a  Home 
with  a  capital  H."     Page  172. 


66       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

of  his  life,  than  in  all  his  years  of  discipline 
afterwards." 

Our  present  interest  in  this  limitation  is 
not  in  the  important  rules  for  dealing  with 
young  children  that  are  to  be  deduced  from 
it,  but  rather  in  the  suggestion  which  it 
gives  concerning  the  relation  of  Christian 
nurture  to  the  religious  problem  as  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  youth.  That  the  child's 
earliest  years  are  its  most  plastic,  that  it  is 
most  sensitive  and  responsive  to  the  forma- 
tive influence  of  the  parental  life  in  the 
days  when  it  is  utterly  dependent,  that 
with  the  growth  of  bodily  strength  and  the 
power  of  thought  and  expression  the  child 
begins  to  lose  plasticity  though  still  remain- 
ing in  the  matrix  of  the  home  life,  are  facts 
of  the  greatest  import  for  those  who  would 
bring  their  young  children  up  in  the  nurture 
and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  Our  special 
concern,  however,  is  to  see  what  becomes  of 
Christian  nurture  when  the  disturbances  of 
youth  break  out.  This  will  be  the  theme  of 
the  next  chapter  to  which  the  present  is  linked 
by  this  consideration  : — Because  Christian 
nurture   works   hy   the   vital  connection  of 


THE  CHEISTIAN  CHAEACTEE      67 

parent  and  child,  it  must  get  its  work  done 
hefore  the  individuation  of  the  child  takes 
place  ;  and  because  that  individuation  Tnust, 
in  the  nature  of  things^  take  place,  Christian 
nurture  is  to  he  regarded  as  intrinsically  a 
preparatory,  never  a  final,  work. 


CHAPTEK  TV 
Where  Christian  Nurture  Fails 

Effective  and  well-nigh  omnipotent  as 
Christian  nurture  appears  to  be  with  child- 
hood, with  the  dawn  of  youth  its  power 
begins  suddenly,  strangely,  but  certainly,  to 
wane.  When  we  look  that  it  should  bring 
forth  grapes,  it  often  brings  forth  wild 
grapes,  or  even  only  the  ashes  of  disap- 
pointment. 

One  would  expect  that  the  children  who 
have  had  the  advantages  of  Christian  nurture 
would,  on  reaching  adolescence,  manifest  a 
decided  superiority  over  those  without  such 
advantages  in  dealing  with  the  religious 
problem.  But  the  facts  in  this  connection 
are  distinctly  disappointing.  Of  course  the 
old. saw  about  ministers'  sons  and  deacons' 
daughters  has  only  a  grain  of  truth  in 
it;  but  that  grain  is  significant.  It  does 
often  happen  that  those  who  have  been 
most  carefully  and  lovingly  nurtured  ex- 
68 


WHEEE  NUETURE  FAILS  69 

hi  bit  pronounced  irreligious  tendencies  in 
youth,  while  those  who  have  been  with- 
out religious  influences  at  home  often  be- 
come most  earnest  and  acceptable  Chris- 
tians. 

One  way  of  explaining  this  is  to  say  that 
Christian  parents  do  not  always  know  how 
to  deal  with  their  children,  and  that  their 
nurture  is  consequently  faulty — which  is 
likely  to  be  and  remain  true  as  long  as 
parents  are  mortal  and  fallible ;  while  on 
the  other  hand,  there  are  few  families,  even 
the  most  openly  irreligious,  whose  children 
are  not  disciplined  in  some  of  the  funda- 
mental requirements  of  that  law  of  morals 
which  is  a  schoolmaster  to  lead  men  to 
Christ.  This  explanation  is  quite  true,  but 
wholly  insufficient.  It  ignores  the  deeper 
cause  that  we  are  trying  to  get  recognized, 
namely,  the  work  that  nature  is  doing  in  the 
soul  of  the  youth  himself. 

The  real  reason  why  so  many  children  of 
Christian  nurture  become  irreligious  youths, 
while  children  without  such  nurture  mani- 
fest a  deeply  religious  spirit  at  adolescence, 
is  found   in   the  self-estrangement  of  the 


70       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

youthful  soul.  This  is  nature's  way  of 
evening  up  the  religious  opportunities  and 
responsibilities  of  the  two  classes.  She 
makes  the  child  of  the  Christian  home 
take  the  attitude  of  a  stranger  toward  his 
early  training,  the  standards  and  ideals  in 
which  he  has  been  nurtured,  and  the  habits 
already  formed,  in  order  that  he  may  learn 
whether  these  things  are  really  a  part  of 
him  or  not;  he  must  find  himself  at  any 
cost,  and  if  his  true  self  be  not  in  these 
things,  he  must  know  it.  This  makes  him, 
at  least  for  a  time  and  in  a  measure,  appear 
irreligious.  On  the  other  hand,  nature 
makes  the  child  of  the  irreligious  home 
feel  himself  a  stranger  to  the  ideals  and 
practices  of  that  circle,  takes  him  into  that 
region  of  religious  faith  and  aspiration  which 
is  to  him  the  far  country,  and  asks  him  to 
find  himself  there.  And  so  it  comes  about 
that  the  advantage  of  the  one  and  the  handi- 
cap of  the  other  are  very  nearly  canceled, 
and  the  children  of  Christian  and  unchristian 
homes  approach  the  questions  of  religion  in 
youth  with  minds  alike  open  to  the  truth, 
and  with  far  less  of  favorable  or  unfavorable 


WHEEE  XUETUEE  FAILS  71 

predisposition  than  we  should  expect.  The 
real  advantage  of  the  child  of  Christian 
parents  lies,  not  in  having  religious  ques- 
tions already  decided  when  he  reaches 
adolescence,  but,  as  we  shall  see  later,  in  a 
very  different  direction. 

In  our  interpretation  of  the  inner  drama 
of  youth,  we  have  used  the  parable  of  the 
Prodigal  Son  to  illustrate  a  certain  estrange- 
ment of  soul,  in  order  to  a  realization  of 
individual  freedom  and  responsibility,  which 
was  set  forth  as  a  natural,  normal  element 
in  the  spiritual  experience  of  adolescence. 
Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  it  is  natural 
only  to  prodigals,  and  that  it  is  dangerous 
to  admit  that  such  a  feeling  has  any  right- 
ful place  in  the  soul,  we  must  take  further 
pains  to  show  its  true  character  and  its 
practical  necessity.  For  contrast  with  the 
prodigal  we  take,  not  his  older  brother,  nor 
any  ordinary  boy  ;  we  take  the  boy  Jesus  him- 
self. The  universal  truth  of  estrangement 
and  reconciliation  has  its  illustration  in  the 
experience  of  the  universal  man. 

The  full  meaning  of  our  Lord's  story  of 
the   boy  that    w^as   lost   and   found   again. 


72       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

dawns  first  upon  us  when  we  connect  it  with 
the  fact  that  our  Lord  himself,  in  the  early 
days  of  his  youth,  was  lost  and  found 
again. 

Just  one  incident  of  the  youth  of  Jesus  is 
recorded  in  the  sacred  volume ;  and  that  is 
the  story  of  his  break  with  his  parents,  and 
his  reconciliation  to  them.  How  illumi- 
nating this  record  is !  and  how  enhearten- 
ing  !  Lest  we  should  think  that  because  our 
youthful  estrangement  always  does  involve 
sin  it  always  must,  and  the  thought  depress 
us  beyond  measure,  the  archetypal  man 
passed  through  it,  was  lost  and  found  again, 
without  sin. 

"  After  three  days  they  found  him  in  the 
temple."  The  words  recall  the  whole  story 
— no  need  to  repeat  it.  Only  observe  that 
this  was  the  meaning  of  youth  to  Jesus — 
separation  from  his  parents  and  entrance 
into  a  larger  sphere.  No  longer  did  the 
word  of  father  and  mother  suffice  him :  he 
must  inquire  of  the  doctors  in  the  temple ! 
NTay,  not  even  they  could  satisfy  his  ado- 
lescent mind ;  he  listened  to  them  with  re- 
spect, but  questioned  their  conventional  re- 


WHEEE  NURTUEE  PAILS  73 

plies  ;  and  they  were  amazed  at  the  penetra- 
tion and  independence  of  thought  displayed 
in  his  words.  Thus  the  soul  of  Jesus,  like 
the  soul  of  every  other  boy,  began  on  enter- 
ing youth  to  round  itself  off  into  a  separate 
individuality.  That  first  separation  from 
his  parents  was  the  significant  beginning  of 
an  estrangement  of  soul  that  made  Jesus 
more  and  more  to  stand  alone  until  he  be- 
came the  one  Perfect  Individual,  the  realized 
ideal  of  manhood,  hailed  everywhere  with 
mocking  words  now  made  worshipful,  "  Be- 
hold, the  man ! " 

But  the  priceless  comfort  of  this  record  is 
that  while  Jesus  was  growing  up  beyond  his 
parents,  he  was  not  growing  away  from 
them.  He  could  exceed  them  without  an- 
tagonizing them ;  as  the  luxuriant  vine  that 
covers  a  whole  trellis  never  despises  the  lit- 
tle narrow  space  of  earth  through  which  it 
came  forth  into  the  free  air  and  sunshine. 
The  first  independent  act  of  our  Lord  that 
is  recorded  was  this :  "  The  boy  Jesus  tar- 
ried behind  in  Jerusalem."  For  that  act  he 
felt  no  contrition  when  his  parents  found 
him ;  his  only  words  were  of  surprise  that 


74       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

they  should  not  have  known  that  he  would 
be  in  his  Father's  house.  He  was  not  sorry 
that  he  had  lingered  ;  he  did  not  repent  of 
having  sought  instruction  that  his  parents 
were  not  competent  to  give.  But  this  first 
assertion  of  his  independent  selfhood  in- 
volved no  stubborn  self-will ;  as  there  was 
no  sin  to  repent  of,  so  there  was  no  obstacle 
to  make  reconciliation  difficult.  "  He  went 
down  with  them,  and  came  to  Nazareth ; 
and  he  was  subject  unto  them." 

Years  afterward  there  came  a  day  when 
Jesus  declared  his  independence  of  his 
mother  in  more  explicit  words,  that  have 
always  seemed  harsh  to  us  :  "Woman,  what 
have  I  to  do  with  thee  ?  "  Nevertheless,  he 
found  it  possible  even  then  to  reconcile  him- 
self to  her  wish  and  do  what  she  desired. 
Still  later,  when  men  said,  "  He  is  beside 
himself,"  and  his  relatives  came  to  lead  him 
away,  he  declared  his  independence  of  them 
only  to  assert  his  union  with  mankind : 
*'  Who  is  my  mother  and  my  brethren  ? 
And  looking  round  on  them  that  sat  round 
about  him,  he  saith.  Behold,  my  mother  and 
my  brethren  !     For  whosoever  shall  do  the 


WHEEE  :N"UETURE  FAILS  75 

will  of  God,  the  same  is  my  brother,  and 
sister,  and  mother."  So,  step  by  step, 
throughout  his  whole  life,  Jesus  linked  each 
self-assertion  of  his  individual  soul  to  an  act 
in  which  he  identified  himself  with  a  higher 
will.  Kever  on  earth  was  elsewhere  seen 
such  self-assertion  as  that  of  Jesus,  passing 
up  from  the  confident  words  of  a  teacher  to 
his  pupils  to  culminate  in  the  astounding 
declaration,  "  All  authority  hath  been  given 
unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth."  Yet  never 
did  earth  see  such  humility,  for  this  soul,  so 
remarkably  individualized,  seemed  never  to 
be  separate  from  the  Highest.  "  I  can  of 
myself  do  nothing.  ...  I  seek  not  mine 
own  will,  but  the  will  of  him  that  sent  me." 
And  if  any  one  imagines  that  this  perfect 
reconciliation  with  the  Father's  will  re- 
quired no  effort  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  that 
he  never  found  himself  in  a  far  country 
whence  he  could  return  to  his  Father  only 
at  great  cost,  let  him  remember  Gethsemane, 
and  judge  by  the  struggling  of  that  soul  that 
was  exceeding  sorrowful  even  unto  death, 
and  by  that  agonizing  prayer,  and  by  that 
bloody  sweat,  how  much  it  cost  the  Saviour 


76       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

to  achieve  his  final  reconciliation  with  his 
Father  and  the  lot  appointed  him,  so  that  he 
could  say,  *'  Not  my  will, but  thine,  be  done!  " 

We  find,  then,  two  distinct  types  of  the 
estrangement  of  youth.  The  Prodigal 
sinned ;  Jesus  did  not.  The  one  represents 
self-discovery  through  an  experience  involv- 
ing some  moral  offense ;  the  other  shows 
that  it  is  possible  to  attain  individual  and 
social  perfection  without  sin.  We  are  led 
therefore  to  expect  marked  differences  in 
the  experience  of  youth  at  the  period  of  ado- 
lescent estrangement.  Some  will  approach 
the  type  of  the  Prodigal ;  others,  though  not 
without  sin,  will  approach  the  type  pre- 
sented in  Jesus. 

It  has  been  common  to  treat  the  differ- 
ence as  wholly  a  moral  difference  :  the  boys 
of  the  one  type  are  called  bad  boys,  the 
others  good.  Or  it  has  been  said,  when  a 
youth  went  the  way  of  the  Prodigal,  that 
there  must  have  been  something  wrong  with 
his  home  training,  and  a  wiser  Christian 
nurture  might  have  prevented  his  fall.  In 
reality  the  difference  is  largely  temperamen- 
tal.    It  appears  among  children  of  the  best 


WHERE  NURTUEE  FAILS  77 


Christian  homes  as  certainly  as  elsewhere. 
Before  we  conclude  that  Christian  nurture 
can  make  Christian  men  and  women  of  our 
children  without  any  imitation  of  the  Prodi- 
gal by  any  of  them,  we  must  patiently  con- 
sider the  effect  of  temperament  upon  the  re- 
ligious experience  of  youth. 

Even  those  who  have  least  use  for  physio- 
logical psychology  recognize  the  correlation 
of  the  spiritual  nature  with  the  brain  and  nerv- 
ous system.     The  two  sets  of  nerves,  sensor 
and  motor,  correspond  to  two  sides  of  thespir- 
itual  nature,  the  receptive  and  the  active.    In 
every  individual,  one   side   of   the   nervous 
system,  and  the  corresponding  side  of  the 
spiritual     nature,    tends     to    predominate. 
Some  are  more  active,  others  more  recep- 
tive.    Some  are  quick,  energetic,  practical ; 
others    are   slow,    thoughtful,    sentimental. 
The    first    are    called   quick-tempered;  the 
second,  easy  or  even-tempered.     This  is  the 
primary  distinction  between  the  tempers  or 
temperaments    of   men.     It   is   crossed    by 
another    line    of    distinction   dividing   the 
strong  from  the  weak,  or,  more  accurately, 
the  intense  from  the  moderate.     This  gives 


78       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

four  great  types  of  temperament,  corre- 
sponding rather  closely  with  the  four  tradi- 
tional types.  There  is  the  weak  motor 
temperament,  that  of  the  enthusiast,  called 
the  sanguine.  The  strong  motor  tempera- 
ment is  that  of  the  men  of  action,  the  in- 
tense, hot-tempered  men;  it  was  formerly 
called  the  choleric,  but  the  ancient  name  is 
without  significance  now,  and  a  more  de- 
scriptive term  is  desirable,  such  as  "  ener- 
getic." The  strong  sensor  temperament  is 
that  of  the  man  of  thought,  reflection  and 
sentiment ;  some  have  replaced  the  ancient 
meaningless  name  "  melancholic  "  by  "  sen- 
timental "  ;  we  prefer  "  reflective  "  as  more 
accurate.  Finally,  the  weak  sensor  temper- 
ament is  that  of  the  slow-and-stead}^  man, 
the  sluggish  man,  or  the  heavy  conserva- 
tive ;  it  is  called  the  "  phlegmatic,"  and  the 
word  has  passed  into  common  speech  with 
just  the  meaning  attached  to  it  here. 

Few  mature  people  exhibit  the  character- 
istics of  any  one  of  these  temperaments  in 
their  purity,  because  the  work  of  education 
does  so  much  to  bring  one's  nature  into  bal- 
ance, overcoming  the  excesses  of  one's  pe- 


WHERE  NURTUEE  PAILS  79 


culiar  temperament.  But  at  the  time  of 
adolescence,  temperamental  peculiarities  as- 
sert themselves  with  full  vigor;  and  they 
are  strong  enough  to  determine  the  form, 
and  often  to  affect  the  content,  of  the 
youth's  religious  experience. 

What,  then,  is  the  influence  of  tempera- 
ment upon  religion  ?     It  has  been  observed 
that  there  is  a  predominance  of  persons  of 
the  sanguine  and  reflective  temperaments  in 
the    churches,   especially   in    those    circles 
within  the  churches  that  are  counted  more 
spiritual.     It  has  also  been  observed  that 
the  spiritual  exercises  of  the  Church,  in  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant  communions,  appeal 
especially  to  these   two  temperaments;  the 
Catholic  ideal  of  spirituality  finds  response 
chiefly  among  the  reflective  or  sentimental, 
while  the  preaching,  songs  and  methods  of 
the  Protestant  revival,  or  the  "  wide-awake  " 
prayer-meeting,   are   especially  adapted   to 
the  sanguine.     From  these  facts  it  is  easy  to 
infer  that  the  predominance  of  sanguine  and 
reflective   people   in   the  Church  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  its  exercises  appeal  especially 
to    these    two   temperaments,   and   that  a 


80       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

change  in  the  character  of  these  exercises 
would  bring  in  a  predominance  of  the  ener- 
getic or  phlegmatic  men.  But  it  would  be 
just  as  true  to  say  that  the  exercises  of  the 
church  suit  these  temperaments  best  because 
there  has  always  been  a  majority  of  this 
class  of  people  in  the  church  to  determine 
what  the  tone  of  the  church  life  should  be. 
The  real  reason  for  the  predominance  of  the 
sanguine  and  reflective  temperaments  among 
the  more  actively  religious  people  lies  in  a 
different  direction. 

It  is  the  exceedingly  simple  reason,  that 
religion  is  easier  for  these  temperaments 
than  for  the  others. 

Reduced  to  the  simplest  possible  terms — 
or  term — religion  is  love.  The  love  that  is 
religion,  whether  shown  toward  God  or  fel- 
low man,  is  essentially  a  self-devotion. 
What  religion  requires  of  every  man  is  that 
he  shall  subdue  himself  in  unselfish  love. 
This  involves  a  fundamental  self-surrender 
to  a  higher  will,  a  conscious  self-subjection 
to  the  law  of  a  Master,  an  enlistment  in  his 
cause.  This  is  not  easy  for  any,  perhaps,  but 
it  is  easier  for  two  types  of  men  than  for  two 


WHEEE  :N^UKTUEE  FAILS  81 

others.  Your  sanguine  man  will  find  it 
comparatively  easy  ;  if  only  his  enthusiasm 
is  stirred,  it  will  carry  him  on.  Your  re- 
flective man  will  find  it  not  so  hard,  because 
his  sober  convictions  and  dearest  sentiments 
point  that  way.  But  your  active,  energetic, 
hot-tempered  man,  the  forceful  man  that 
does  most  of  the  rough-and-ready  work  of 
the  world,  will  find  it  exceedingly  hard,  be- 
cause the  self  in  him  is  far  more  intensely 
assertive,  and  cannot  be  so  readily  subdued. 
And  your  slow,  phlegmatic  man  will  find  it 
hard,  because  the  appeal  for  self-devotion 
awakens  no  enthusiasm,  kindles  no  respon- 
sive fires,  in  his  breast;  religion  for  him 
must  be  a  matter  of  cool  calculation  and 
clear  perception  of  duty.  Here  is  the  con- 
stitutional reason  for  the  predominance  of 
the  sanguine  and  reflective  temperaments  in 
the  Church  ;  it  is  because  these  tempera- 
ments find  self-conquest,  self-devotion  to 
another's  cause,  self-surrender  to  a  higher 
will,  much  easier  than  the  others. 

But  the  value  of  an  attainment  is  meas- 
ured by  its  difficulty.  The  men  who  become 
Christians    hardest    often    make    the    best 


82       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Christians.  Religion  does  its  greatest  work 
in  those  temperaments  that  respond  to  it 
least  readily.  Nathanael  was  a  reflective 
temperament,  an  Israelite  in  whom  there 
was  no  guile  before  he  ever  met  with  Jesus ; 
but  even  after  becoming  one  of  the  chosen 
Twelve  he  never  did  a  single  thing  signifi- 
cant enough  to  be  recorded.  Peter  was  a 
great,  robust,  hot-tempered,  coarse-grained, 
profane  man,  with  a  lot  of  work  for  grace 
to  do  in  his  nature  before  he  could  be  sanc- 
tified ;  but  Peter  was  worth  more  to  the 
cause  of  Christ  than  a  hundred  Nathanaels. 
It  has  probably  always  been  true,  and  is 
likely  to  be  true  in  the  future,  that  the  san- 
guine and  reflective  temperaments  form  the 
majority  among  professed  Christians ;  but 
the  minority,  made  up  of  forceful  men  of 
action  and  those  slow  and  steady  natures 
that  can  hold  on  and  endure  with  inexhaust- 
ible patience,  do  the  most  effective  work  and 
wield  the  greatest  influence.  The  sanguine 
temperament  gives  us  the  most  enthusiastic 
leaders,  the  most  stirring  preachers,  the 
most  affecting  singers  ;  the  reflective  tem- 
perament furnishes  most  of  the  scholars  and 


WHERE  NURTURE  FAILS  83 


thinkers ;  but  the  energetic  and  phlegmatic 
temperaments  supply  the  most  effective  or- 
ganizers and  administrators,  the  best  mis- 
sionaries, and  the  most  reliable  supporters 
of  the  Church. 

This  consideration  of  temperamental  dif- 
ferences furnishes  a  most  suggestive  insight 
into  the  behavior  of  young  people  when  the 
estrangement  of  youth  comes  over  them. 
The  sanguine  boy  is  very  likely  to  be  "  car- 
ried away"  with  something;  if  with  en- 
thusiasm for  religion— usually  represented 
to  him  by  some  class  or  society— it  is  well, 
only  we  are  to  remember  that  he  may  be 
one  of  those  who,  having  no  root  in  them- 
selves, soon  wither.  The  reflective  boy  will 
be  the  doubter,  astonish  you  with  skeptical 
questions,  and  have  real  and  serious  strug- 
gles with  his  beliefs  and  convictions;  he 
will  do  the  most  earnest  thinking,  and  be 
most  likely  to  come  into  the  church  from 
the  Sunday-school  or  pastor's  class.  The 
active,  energetic  boy,  who  always  plunges 
deep  when  he  goes  in  at  all,  is  very  likely  to 
be  the  prodigal,  and  the  sluggish,  phleg- 
matic boy  will  be  the  tame  elder  brother, 


84       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

who  never  goes  into  the  far  country  and 
never  learns  the  depth  and  sweetness  of  the 
Paternal  love  in  whose  sunshine  he  daily 
moves.  In  general,  it  is  pretty  sure  that  the 
boys  of  sanguine  and  energetic  tempera- 
ments— the  "  motor-minded  "  youth,  will  ex- 
perience a  more  violent  estrangement,  go 
further  in  risks  of  sin,  break  more  com- 
pletely with  their  past  training  and  ideals, 
than  the  others.  There  is  therefore  a  deep 
reason  in  human  nature  why  some  boys 
should  follow  in  youth  the  example  of  the 
Prodigal,  and  some  the  example  of  Jesus ; 
and  that  reason  is  not  that  those  of  the  one 
class  are  worse  morally  than  the  others,  but 
that  they  are  different  temperamentally. 
Whence  it  follows,  that  no  system  of  Chris- 
tian nurture  or  culture  can  possibly  secure 
anything  like  a  uniform  religious  experience 
for  those  of  different  temperaments.  Only 
dismal  disappointment  waits  for  him  who 
expects  to  bring  these  four  boys  to  Christ  in 
the  same  way. 

There  is  another  matter  to  be  considered 
here.  Sex,  as  well  as  temperament,  has 
much  to  do  with  the  form  that  religious  ex- 


WHEEE  NUETUEE  FAILS  85 

perience  takes  in  youth.  For  one  thing,  it 
is  pretty  well  established  that  women,  by 
nature,  approach  more  nearly  on  the  whole 
to  the  sanguine  and  reflective  types  of  tem- 
perament among  men  than  to  the  others ; 
not  that  there  are  no  energetic  or  phleg- 
matic women,  but  that  their  energy  is  not  so 
coarse,  and  their  passivity  seldom  so  dull. 
Therefore,  the  same  reasons  that  make  the 
sanguine  and  reflective  types  of  men  prevail 
in  the  church,  tend  to  bring  in  a  majority 
of  women.  The  women  are  most  likely  to 
respond  to  appeals  that  are  suited  to  men  of 
those  types.  Moreover,  the  requirement  of 
self-devotion  finds  in  the  feminine  nature  its 
preeminent  object.  The  kind  of  self-devo- 
tion that  religion  requires  comes  far  more 
easily  to  women  than  to  even  sanguine  or 
reflective  men.  It  is  easier  by  nature,  and 
long  custom  has  made  it  easier  still.  Self- 
devotion,  self-surrender  to  another,  self-con- 
secration to  another's  cause,  have  always 
been  woman's  peculiar  privilege,  her  most 
winsome  characteristic,  and  her  most  com- 
manding claim  on  man's  grateful  love.  A 
deep  instinct  of  humanity  says  that  it  is 


8G     educatio:nal  evangelism 

good  and  right  that  a  woman  should  give 
herself  to  her  husband,  leaving  home,  family, 
friends,  even  her  very  name,  to  identify  her- 
self with  him  and  his.  And  it  is  clean 
against  nature  to  reverse  the  process,  sim- 
ply because  nature  has  made  it  easier  for 
women  to  surrender  their  all  in  self-devo- 
tion than  for  men. 

That  is  one  reason  why  religion,  in  its  es- 
sence, comes  easier  to  women  than  to  men. 
There  is  another,  which  applies  with  es- 
pecial force  to  the  organized  and  social  re- 
ligion of  the  church.  It  is  because  women 
are  more  racial  by  constitution  than  men. 
Here  is  surely  one  of  the  deepest  differences 
between  the  sexes.  There  is  a  certain  great 
racial  type  of  what  nature  means  a  human 
being  to  be,  maintained  from  age  to  age. 
Scientists  have  observed  that  in  the  course 
of  evolution,  it  is  through  the  female  that 
this  type  is  maintained.  The  male  is  not  so 
constant ;  he  is  more  completely,  sometimes 
extravagantly,  individualized ;  in  him  the 
most  pronounced  variations  appear  ;  nature 
tries  her  boldest  experiments  with  him.  It 
is  natural  to  expect  in  man,  therefore,  the 


WHEEE  NURTUEE  FAILS  87 

more  pronounced  and  extreme  individuali- 
ties, while  woman  keeps  closer  to  the  racial 
type.  He  goes  forth  to  seek  new  good, 
while  she  conserves  and  passes  on  to  fu- 
ture generations  the  good  already  attained 
by  the  race.  This  means  that  in  religion 
man's  nature  impels  him  to  seek  a  new  and 
unique  religious  experience  for  himself, 
while  woman's  moves  her  to  take  up  and 
hold  fast  the  approved  good  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  race.  She  is  therefore  more 
social  in  her  religious  experience,  goes  more 
easily  with  a  company,  conforms  without 
serious  objection  to  custom  and  convention 
in  this  as  in  other  things ;  while  man  is 
more  individual,  fights  out  more  battles 
with  sin  and  doubt  alone,  rebels  more  often 
against  conventional  ideas  and  practices, 
and  compasses  a  wider  sweep  of  wandering 
before  he  settles  in  his  Father's  house.  For 
this  reason  it  is  more  natural  for  women 
than  for  men  to  join  the  church.  We  do 
not  say,  or  believe,  that  they  are  more  re- 
ligious than  men;  but  conventional  and 
social  religion  comes  more  easily  to  them. 
The  very  thing  that  makes  it  easier  for  the 


88       EDUCATIO^STAL  EVANGELISM 

women  to  follow  the  fashions  and  maintain 
the  social  conventionalities,  also  makes  it 
easier  for  them  to  find  their  places  in  the 
church.  And  if  a  church  has  more  male 
than  female  members,  there  is  something 
abnormal  in  its  condition,  and  it  is  not  es- 
pecially to  be  congratulated. 

But  here  again,  religion's  hardest  work  is 
its  best  work.  A  church  made  up  wholly  of 
women  would  not  be  a  very  influential 
church.  But  a  few  strong  men,  who  have 
had  manful  struggles  with  doubt  and  sin, 
and  deep  personal  experiences  of  salvation, 
when  united  with  twice  their  number  of 
faithful  women,  make  up  a  church  full  of 
power.  The  constitutional  difference  be- 
tween the  sexes  that  we  have  just  consid- 
ered suggests  that  as  a  rule  religion  must 
hold  its  own  through  the  women  ;  it  must 
make  its  chief  advances  through  the  men. 
The  great  work  of  preserving  and  passing 
on  to  posterity  the  garnered  good  of  the 
ages  is  largely  a  work  that  men  cannot  do. 
But  the  advances  of  each  new  age  are  made 
by  the  incorporation  into  the  religions  body 
of  new  and  distinctive  individuals,  men  of 


WHEEE  NURTUEE  FAILS  89 

pronounced  character  and  critical  experience 
of  the  religious  verities  that  bear  especially 
upon  the  present.  Without  the  women,  the 
Church  would  soon  be  scattered ;  without 
the  men  it  would  be  fossilized. 

It  is  now  obvious  that  the  kind  of  Chris- 
tian nurture  that  suffices  to  bring  the  girls 
into  the  church,  when  in  adolescence  their 
racial  instincts  awake  to  life,  will  not  suffice 
for  the  boys,  because  their  instincts  impel 
them  to  a  widely  different  experience.  Boy 
and  girl  are  religious  beings  of  different 
mold.  It  is  stupid  in  us  not  to  see  it ;  and 
it  is  folly,  if  not  sin,  for  us  to  blame  the 
boy  for  yielding  a  less  ready  obedience  to 
religious  influences  than  his  sister  yields. 

Is  there  then  a  normal  type  of  religious 
experience  for  youth  ?  Manifestly  not. 
Differences  of  temperament  and  sex  make 
that  forever  impossible.  The  one  thing 
common  to  all  youthful  experiences  is  the 
realization  of  a  separate  personality,  a  per- 
sonal character.  But  not  all  can  realize  a 
personal  character,  even  a  character  copied 
from  the  divine  model  given  in  Jesus,  by  the 
same  course.     One  method  is  for  the  youth 


90       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 


to  enter  gradually  upon  the  new  possession 
of  his  own  mind  and  character,  taking  the 
lessons  of  childhood  one  by  one  and  testing 
them  by  the  larger  experience  into  which  he 
has  come  ;  finding  point  by  point,  with  in- 
creasing delight,  that  his  personal  experience 
of  life  corresponds  with  the  teaching  of  his 
early  years  and  proves  it  true  ;  until  at  last 
his  whole  fund  of  knowledge,  his  entire  re- 
ligious mind,  is  made  over  into  a  new  pos- 
session, and  he  is  renewed  in  spirit  through 
a  personal  experience  of  growth  in  knowl- 
edge and  grace,  and  finds  himself  firmly 
grounded  in  the  essentials  of  a  Christian 
character. 

But  for  those  of  different  temperament, 
the  achievement  of  individual  character 
means  a  sweeping  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence of  all  the  teaching  and  prac- 
tices of  early  years.  They  doubt  the  truth 
of  the  lessons  that  they  have  been  taught, 
not  point  by  point  in  the  way  of  testing 
them,  but  ali  in  bulk.  They  put  themselves 
in  opposition  to  their  early  training  and  the 
wisdom  expressed  in  it.  The  more  com- 
pletely they  have  been  enveloped  in  a  relig- 


WHEEE  XUETUEE  FAILS  91 


ious  atmosphere,  the  more  deeply  do  they 
feel  the  impulse  to  get  entirely  away  from 
it  and  look  at  life  from  a  wholly  different 
standpoint.     They  cut  loose  from  early  as- 
sociations,   break   off   good   habits   already 
formed,  experiment  with  many  questionable 
things  ;  lend  a  hospitable  ear  to  theories  of 
life  that  deny  religion  and  ignore  morality ; 
find  themselves  in  a  skeptical  world,  seek  the 
reason   for   the   skepticism,   then  share  it; 
lose,  for  a  time  at  least,  all  sympathy  with 
their  early  Christian  training,  all  Christian 
convictions,    faith     and     hope.     Like    the 
Prodigal  they  go  into  the  far  country,  and 
do  not  seem  to  be  able  to  find  themselves  in 
any  other  way.     When   they  do   come  to 
themselves,  they  are  amazed  and  pained  to 
»see  what  a  sinful  self  it  is  to  which  they 
have  come.     Innocence  has  been  lost,  and 
life  is  all  marred  with  streaks  of  sin;  bad 
habits  have  been  formed  and  fixed ;  ill  has 
been    done,    and   ill   deserved;    henceforth 
their  only  hope  of  becoming  men  in  whom 
the  image  of  God  may  be  seen  lies  in  a 
radical,  revolutionary  renewal  of  the  spirit 
of   their  mind.     There  must   be  a  decisive 


92       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

change,  a  transformation,  a  conversion  from 
an  evil  life. 

The  point  to  be  enforced  here  is  that  this 
type  of  experience  is  prescribed  by  human 
nature  and  provided  for  in  the  gospel  as 
truly  as  the  other.  The  expectation  that 
Christian  nurture  will  generally  insure  the 
attainment  of  Christian  character  without 
such  experiences  has  no  better  ground  than 
the  former  expectation  that  such  experiences 
were  always  necessary  because  human  na- 
ture was  totally  depraved.  Each  theory 
makes  a  specific  type  of  human  nature  the 
exclusive  one.  The  question  whether  a  boy, 
brought  up  under  Christian  nurture,  shall 
achieve  a  personal  faith  and  character  by 
gradual  growth,  testing  his  faith  point  by 
point  until  he  is  well  assured  of  its  validity, 
or  by  the  more  violent  method  of  breaking 
with  his  past,  finding  new  and  often  evil 
associations,  trying  the  life  of  infidelity,  and 
then  coming  back  to  his  father's  faith,  if  he 
ever  comes  at  all,  with  a  deep  sense  of  per- 
sonal sin,  is  very  largely  a  question  of  tem- 
perament. To  some  extent  it  may  be  a 
question  of  his  treatment  in  youth  by  his 


WHEEE  NUETUEE  FAILS  93 


parents  and  teachers ;  but  fundamentally,  it 
is  a  question  of  his  own  nature— the  nature 
that  God  gave  him  and  meant  for  his  bless- 
ing, not  for  his  loss.  Certain  temperaments 
are  more  likelj^  to  enter  into  a  Christian  life 
by  the  gradual  steps  of  uneventful  growth  ; 
others,  often  the  more  strenuous,  vigorous 
ones,  must  have  a  more  stormy  career,  a 
more  extreme  experience,  and  enter  the 
higher  life  by  a  more  marked  revolution. 
But  both  ways  are  right  vvays,  both  ways 
are  God's  ways,  and  neither  should  ever  be 
lost  sight  of  by  the  Church.  So  long  as 
there  are  in  this  world  men  of  impulsive 
natures,  quick  tempers,  ardent,  enthusiastic, 
sanguine  or  stormy  temperaments,  as  well 
as  men  more  sedate  and  evenly  poised,  so 
long  must  the  Church  give  attention  to  the 
conversion  of  mature  men  as  well  as  to  the 
nurture  of  children  and  youth. 

It  is  evident  that  the  estrangement,  which 
we  have  seen  to  be  a  natural  and  essential 
feature  of  nature's  work  in  the  soul  of  youth, 
is  always  likely  to  carry  those  of  sanguine  or 
energetic  temperaments  into  the  far  country 
where  the  Prodigal  went,  in  spite  of  all  that 


94      EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Christian  nurture  can  do  for  them.  What 
advantage,  then,  has  the  child  of  Christian 
nurture  ? 

Much  every  way;  but  chiefly  this,  that 
even  in  the  far  country  he  still  knows  him- 
self to  be  a  child  of  God,  and  says,  "My 
Father."  The  Prodigal  is  by  no  means  the 
sorriest  figure  in  the  story.  Far  worse 
oflP  than  he  is  the  "citizen  of  that  coun- 
try," who  never  had  any  other  home  or 
knew  any  better  life.  The  life  of  sin  is  his 
native  element ;  to  it  he  was  born  ;  every 
one,  himself  included,  always  expected  him 
to  lead  that  life.  Often,  alas!  he  is  per- 
fectly content  with  it.  If  he  is  converted, 
he  must  break  awa}^  from  all  that  has  been 
bred  into  him,  from  all  his  associations,  am- 
bitions and  pursuits ;  he  must  learn  the 
Christian  ideals  and  ways  as  something 
wholly  new,  and  come  as  a  stranger  into  the 
household  of  the  faith.  The  conversion  of 
the  Prodigal  is  also  a  turning  from  evil  to 
righteous  wavs ;  but  it  is  a  turning  back  to 
ways  of  righteousness  familiar  to  his  feet 
from  infancy.  The  infinite  advantage  of 
the  Prodigal  over  the  far  country  native, 


WHEEE  NUETUEE  FAILS  95 

the  child  of  Christian  nurture  over  the  child 
of  the  street,  is  that  at  the  farthest  point  of 
prodigal  wandering  he  still  knows  a  better 
life  and  knows  it  as  his  true  place,  remem- 
bers higher  ideals  and  a  sphere  where  they 
are  realized  by  his  kin,  has  a  thousand 
memories  and  associations  that  unite  with 
the  pleas  of  his  friends,  the  prayers  and 
tears  of  his  parents,  to  win  him  back  to  the 
life  to  which  he  was  born  and  of  which  he 
is  a  part.  Christian  nurture  cannot  keep  all 
the  boys  from  a  prodigal's  career;  but  it 
does,  again  and  again,  make  the  difference 
between  the  prodigal  who  returns  penitent 
and  is  saved  and  the  wanderer  who  finds  the 
far  country  to  his  mind  and  dwells  there 
content. 

Some  one,  pleading  for  the  children,  has 
said  that  in  time  past  the  churches  well-nigh 
reversed  the  saying  of  the  Saviour,  and  the 
children  were  practically  told,  "Except  ye 
become  as  grown  men,  and  be  converted,  ye 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
In  our  time  the  pendulum  of  thought  is 
swinging  to  the  other  extreme,  and  there  is 


96       EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

danger  that,  with  our  emphasis  on  Christian 
nurture  and  early  entrance  into  the  church, 
we  are  about  to  say,  in  effect,  to  the  men, 
"  Even  if  you  are  converted  and  become  as 
little  children,  your  habits  are  so  fixed  and 
your  character  so  settled  that  your  chance 
of  entering  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  ex- 
tremely small."  It  will  never  do  to  forget 
that  the  Saviour  who  said,  *'  Suffer  the  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them 
not,"  and  received  and  blessed  the  children 
two  or  three  times  in  his  career,  made  it  his 
daily  labor  to  call  sinners  to  repentance,  to 
seek  and  save  the  lost,  to  sit  at  meat  with 
publicans  and  sinners  and  offer  them  all  the 
treasures  of  his  kingdom.  Only  by  desert- 
ing the  methods  of  the  Master  can  we  give 
the  conversion  of  mature  men,  yes,  of  hard- 
ened sinners,  a  secondary  place  in  our  ex- 
pectations and  our  Christian  efforts. 

Blessed  are  those  souls  that  find  their  God 
by  the  smooth  path  of  unconscious  Christian 
growth,  w^th  no  weary  wandering  in  the 
ways  of  flagrant  sin.  Blessed  are  those 
who  settle  their  personal  relations  with  God 
in  the  happy  days  of  youth,  starting  right 


WHEEE  NUETUEE  FAILS  97 

in  life,  or  discovering  a  wrong  start  quickly 
and  hastening  back  to  Christ.  But  when 
youth  has  passed  without  a  Christian  experi- 
ence that  leads  to  confession,  let  no  man 
think  that  his  day  of  grace  is  past.  For  all 
the  greater  experiences  of  life,  which  the 
Creator  has  appointed  for  his  children,  are 
designed  to  win  them  away  from  sin  and  the 
love  of  sin,  to  renew  the  spirit  of  their 
minds  with  a  deep  sense  of  their  need  of 
divine  friendship  and  fellowship ;  and  if  the 
spirit  of  a  man  is  not  set  right  with  God  in 
youth,  as  indeed  it  ought  to  be,  then  the 
heavenly  Father  has  wisely  and  lovingly 
ordained  all  these  sober  years  of  responsi- 
bility and  work,  all  the  deep  experiences  of 
human  love  and  sorrow,  and  these  solemn 
days  of  age  when  life's  work  is  done,  to  win 
men  to  a  right  and  loving  spirit  toward  him- 
self. God  nurtures  his  children  through  all 
their  threescore  years  and  ten ;  and  he 
faints  not,  neither  is  weary,  when  his  labor 
seems  in  vain  and  the}^  wander  afar  from 
him ;  for  he  knows  that  when,  at  last,  the 
day  of  repentance  shall  come,  that  man  will 
love  most  to  whom  most  is  forgiven. 


CHAPTER  V 
The  Evangelism  of  Jesus 

The  practical  interest  of  the  investigation 
of  the  religious  mind  of  youth  centers  in  the 
question,  What  means  and  methods  of  Chris- 
tian work  will  most  certainly  and  effectively 
promote  the  achievement  of  a  Christian  char- 
acter ? 

In  the  discussion  of  this  matter  hitherto, 
attention  has  been  chiefly  directed  to  two 
methods  of  making  disciples,  the  method  of 
the  evangelist  and  the  method  of  Christian 
nurture.  The  two  methods  have  been  set  in 
sharp  contrast,  and  the  partisans  of  each 
have  vigorously  and  even  bitterly  decried 
the  other.  We  have  just  seen,  however,  that 
there  is  reason  for  holding  that  both  methods 
are  grounded  in  permanent  and  character- 
istic movements  of  the  spiritual  life,  so  that 
both  are  likely  to  continue  in  use  with  no 
real  abatement  of  power,  though  with  con- 
siderable abatement  of  expectations,  when 
98 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS       99 

the  intrinsic    limitations  of  each  are  fully 
recognized. 

Serious  defects  are,  indeed,  inherent  in 
both  methods.  The  method  of  the  evangel- 
ist has  been  subjected  to  severe  criticism  be- 
cause of  its  extreme  liability  to  abuse.  The 
revival,  as  we  have  seen,  is  an  institution 
meant  to  stir  the  religious  feelings  to  their 
depths  with  a  mighty  appeal  to  hope  and 
fear  and  aspiration,  in  order  to  produce  such 
a  disturbance  of  the  usual  balance  of  the 
emotions  that  a  new  adjustment  of  the  spir- 
itual life  may  easily  come  about;  and  it 
aims  to  create  this  disturbance  in  a  multi- 
tude of  men  at  once,  and  move  them  in  the 
mass.  It  is  inevitable  that  a  method  which 
thus  works  on  all  with  means  designed  to 
move  the  hardened  and  awake  the  sluggish, 
should  put  a  violent  strain  upon  natures  that 
need  no  such  vigorous  stirring,  and  often 
work  them  real  and  serious  harm.  This 
danger  besets  the  method  in  the  hands  of 
the  wisest  evangelist ;  and  the  mischief 
wrought  by  the  unwise  is  past  all  reckoning. 
Yet  the  purpose  to  reach  and  arouse  those 
whom   less   demonstrative   methods  fail  to 


100     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

touch,  those  mature  and  hardened  sinners 
who  are  not  amenable  to  the  gentler  leading 
of  the  ordinary  means  of  grace,  is  a  legitimate 
and  laudable  one ;  and  while  we  hope  that 
the  day  of  the  illiterate,  self-appointed,  ob- 
streperous evangelist,  with  a  harsh  voice  and 
a  narrow  experience  and  a  limp  Bible  and  a 
fund  of  stories  and  little  else,  is  past  or 
rapidly  passing,  we  gladly  recognize  in  the 
true  evangelist  of  apostolic  spirit  a  man  sent 
from  God,  who  ought  to  be  no  stranger  in 
the  churches. 

The  method  of  Christian  nurture  is  also 
open  to  serious  criticism.  Its  defect  is,  not 
that  it  is  abused,  but  that  it  is  so  little  used 
as  to  be  wholly  inadequate.  In  the  nature 
of  the  case,  it  is  a  method  applicable  only  to 
a  minority  of  each  generation.  It  is  distinct- 
ively the  method  of  the  devout  family ;  it 
requires  a  Christian  home  as  its  field,  and  a 
family  circle  richly  pervaded  with  the  spirit 
of  Christ ;  its  most  important  period  is  the 
first  three  years  of  the  child's  life  ;  it  works 
by  vital  forces  and  unconscious  influences 
more  than  by  deliberate  intention  and  efi'ort ; 
it  requires  parents  to  be  priests  to  bring 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     101 

their  children  to  God,  the  home  life  to  be 
the  matrix  to  mold  their  souls  for  Christ,  and 
family  government  to  be  the  pattern  of  the 
divine  order  in  which  the  child's  will  and 
conscience  shall  be  gradually  and  almost  un- 
consciously adjusted  to  the  higher  law.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Christian  homes  that 
meet  these  conditions  and  bring  forth  the 
ripe  fruit  of  Christian  nurture  are  compara- 
tively few.  Family  religion  is  more  and 
more  neglected  ;  the  family  altar  is  a  thing 
unknown  in  the  majority  even  of  Christian 
homes.  By  far  the  larger  part  of  our  young 
people  are  coming  out  of  homes  where  the 
mention  of  personal  religion  is  carefully 
avoided,  and  parental  example  is  at  best  a 
divided  influence;  while  as  for  Bushnell's 
doctrine  of  the  out-populating  power  of  the 
Christian  stock,  the  best  that  can  be  said  is 
that  there  is  a  certain  large  truth  in  the  idea 
as  applied  to  the  Christian  races  among  the 
peoples  of  the  world,  but  no  apparent  truth 
whatever  in  the  idea  that,  in  our  land,  the 
avowedly  Christian  families  will  "  out-popu- 
late "  those  where  acknowledged  personal 
religion  is  unknown. 


102    educatio:n^al  evangelism 

And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  our 
churches  have  found  both  methods  wanting, 
and  have  ceased  to  place  their  chief  reliance 
for  making  disciples  on  either,  or  on  the  two 
combined.  The  hope  of  rearing  children  in 
Christian  households  to  out-populate  the  un- 
christian families  among  us  has  vanished,  if 
indeed  it  ever  was  seriously  entertained. 
Yet  the  danger  and  foil}'  of  letting  children 
grow  up  as  sinners  to  be  converted  later  on 
has  been  brought  home  to  the  conscience 
of  the  Church  so  strongly  as  to  make  it 
altogether  impossible  to  fall  back  upon  the 
revival  method  as  completely  as  in  former 
days.  We  have  simply  been  forced  to  de- 
velop another  method,  making  use  of  other 
means. 

By  common  consent,  the  churches  of  the 
present  time  have  consigned  both  the  re- 
vivalistic  and  the  Christian  nurture  methods 
of  winning  men  to  a  secondary  place,  and 
committed  their  chief  hopes  to  the  method 
of  educational  evangelism.  It  is  indeed  a 
sorry  fact,  bat  it  is  a  fact  that  bulks  large 
in  the  planning  of  religious  work  to-day, 
that  the  church  cannot  trust  the  home  to  do 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     103 


its  part.  For  this  reason,  there  is  practically 
no  recognition  of  Christian  nurture  in  the 
organization  of  religious  work.  No  distinc- 
tion is  made  between  the  children  of  Chris- 
tian families  and  others.  They  are  taken 
into  the  same  classes,  and  given  the  same 
instruction  and  discipline.  And  good,  ear- 
nest, sensible  Christian  parents,  who  are 
trying  to  do  their  part,  are  content,  with 
seldom  an  objection,  to  have  their  children 
taught  the  same  lessons,  touched  by  the 
same  influences,  moved  by  the  same  appeals, 
as  the  children  of  unchristian  homes. 

A  colossal  blunder,  surely  !  Nay,  it  is  no 
such  thing.  The  fact  that  children  of  such 
different  antecedents  are  often  grouped  to- 
gether and  given  the  same  treatment  does 
not  prove  that  Sunday-school  officers  and 
teachers  are  blockheads  without  a  ray  of 
intelligence  in  ordering  their  work;  it 
proves  that  common  sense  has  recognized 
in  religious  education,  as  in  secular,  a  work 
of  such  beneficence  and  such  dimensions  that 
all  children  are  profited  by  it,  whatever  their 
antecedents. 

The  principle  which  lies  at  the  foundation 


104     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

of  this  new  conception  of  evangelism  is, 
that  Christian  character  can  be  formed  b}- 
education ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  tlie 
Holy  Spirit  can  do  his  transforming  and 
sanctifying  work  upon  the  soul  through 
educational  means,  no  less  than  by  con- 
version on  the  one  hand,  or  Christian  birth 
and  growth  on  the  other.  The  most  favored 
child  of  Christian  lineage  needs  tlie  stimulus 
of  educational  contact  and  fellowship  with 
those  unlike  himself  to  develop  a  ripened, 
robust,  well-rounded  Christian  character. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  power  in 
the  truth  of  God,  educationally  applied  to 
the  growing  soul,  to  counteract  the  worst 
possible  heredity  and  home  environment ; 
for  have  we  not  all  seen  those  who  came 
out  of  the  worst  conditions,  children  with 
every  human  reason  to  be  spoiled  and  ruined, 
growing  up  to  a  pure,  strong,  consecrated 
manhood  and  womanhood,  without  ever 
knowing  an  hour  of  true  Christian  nurture, 
nor  yet  any  marked  experience  of  con- 
version ?  If  we  can  effect  a  real  contact 
of  the  child's  mind  with  the  truth  of  Jesus, 
and,  even  for  an  hour  now  and  then,  bathe 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     105 


his  spirit  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  there  can  be 
formed  in  him  a  Christian  character  against 
which  hell  shall  not  prevail,  though  en- 
trenched in  his  own  home. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  of  late 
about  "  the  new  evangelism."     Far  and  wide 
Christian     people     are     entertaining    such 
thoughts  as  these  .-—Revivals  are  no  longer 
popular ;  protracted  meetings  have  reached 
an  end  ;  the  itinerant  evangelist  is  less  effect- 
ive than  he  was— where  is  the  Whitefield 
or  Finney  or  Moody  to  move  the  masses  to- 
day ?     The  minister  who  trusts  to  occasional 
awakenings  for  the  gathering  of  the  harvest 
is  voted  a  failure ;  the  church  so  dead  as  to 
need  reviving  is  recreant  to  its  work.     But 
while    we   mourn   the    waning   of   the   old 
evangelism,  we  hear  the  acclamations  that 
proclaim  the  rising  of  the  new.     If  the  old 
way  is  dying,  let  it  die  ;  a  new  has  been 
born,   and    "  God   fulfills   himself  in  many 
ways,  lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt 
the  world."     The  new  evangelism  works  by 
means   of   Sunday-schools,  Young  People's 
Societies,  catechetical   classes,  and  pastors' 
meetings  with  the  young;  it  studies  psychol- 


106     EDUCATIONAL  EYAIsGELISM 

ogy  and  pedagogy,  investigates  the  mind 
of  the  child,  the  phenomena  of  adolescence, 
the  spiritual  nature  of  the  mature  man  in 
normal  and  pathological  conditions ;  it  works 
quietly,  but  with  a  purpose  that  is  deep  and 
broad  and  long — it  knows  how  to  wait  as 
well  as  work  ;  it  avoids  excitement  and  dis- 
play, trusting  the  still  small  voice  to  do 
more  for  the  salvation  of  souls  than  blatant 
advertising;  it  honors  all  the  services  of  the 
church,  all  the  religion  of  the  home,  as 
means  of  making  disciples  of  Christ,  and 
seeks  to  supplement  them,  not  by  anything 
extraordinary  and  sensational,  but  by  healthy 
and  constant  personal  influence.  A  few  ac- 
cessions at  each  communion  of  the  church,  or 
a  goodly  class  once  a  year,  are  the  ideal  aimed 
at ;  and  when  a  church  does  report  large 
numbers  added  to  its  membership,  it  is 
common  now  to  add  that  there  have  been 
no  appeals  to  the  emotions,  no  special  meet- 
ings, no  artificial  methods,  often  no  helpers 
for  the  minister  except  the  people  of  his  own 
congregation. 

Perhaps  such  language  is  too  explicit,  for 
popular  thought  about  the  new  evangelism 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     107 


is  nebulous,  and  the  movement  itself  is,  like 
infant  movements  generally,  vague  and  un- 
certain, with  many  clutches  at  the  moon. 
But  two  things  are  perfectly  clear  to  all : 
there  is  a  widespread  loss  of  confidence  in 
the  evangelistic  methods  of  the  past ;  and 
there  is  an  insistent  demand  for  an  effective 
sj^stem  of  religious  education.  One  who 
meditates  with  penetration  on  these  two 
facts  will  be  convinced  that  the  new 
evangelism  has  the  breath  of  life  in  it,  and 
a  great  future  before  it. 

For  it  will  be  plain  to  him  that  all  true 
evangelism  must  be  educational.  Education 
is  the  development  of  the  inner  capacities  of 
the  soul.  It  is  not  possible,  declares  Presi- 
dent Butler,  of  Columbia  College,  "for  us 
ever  again  to  identify  education  with  mere 
acquisition  of  learning.  ...  It  must  mean 
a  gradual  adjustment  to  the  spiritual 
possessions  of  the  race."  But  the  adjust- 
ment of  life  to  the  spiritual  realities  with 
which  men  have  to  do  is  precisely  the  work 
of  evangelism.  Just  as  every  intellectual 
discipline  assumes  and  addresses  the  capacity 
of  the  soul  for  thought,  so  evangelism  as- 


108     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

sumes  and  addresses  its  capacity  for  God. 
The  evangelism  that  fails  to  meet  the  edu- 
cational test,  that  merely  offers  men  some- 
thing from  without  and  seeks  to  elicit  noth- 
ing from  within,  is  not  adapted  to  the 
nature  of  the  soul  that  it  would  save  or 
fitted  for  the  work  that  it  undertakes  to  do. 
Missionaries  have  always  learned  this  by  ex- 
perience; and  since  St.  Paul  taught  daily  for 
two  years  in  the  school  of  Tyrannus,  they 
have  never  been  the  ones  to  put  asunder  the 
evangelistic  appeal  and  the  educational  de- 
velopment. 

It  will  also  be  plain  that  the  new  evangel- 
ism, in  its  effort  to  work  out  an  effective  edu- 
cational system  for  winning  souls  to  God,  is 
a  return  to  the  method  of  the  Master.  Jesus 
was  both  preacher  and  teacher ;  but  his 
purpose  was  one ;  all  his  teaching  was 
evangelistic,  all  his  preaching  educational. 
As  the  Church  approaches  the  method  of 
Jesus  in  dealing  with  men,  its  evangelism 
will  certainly  become  more  educational,  its 
efforts  at  religious  education  more  pro- 
foundly evangelistic. 

Consider  the   evangelism   of  Jesus.     He 


THE  EYA^GELLSM  OF  JESUS     109 

proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  native  to  every  human 
soul.  He  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you."  He  dealt  with  men  upon  that 
basis.  He  sought,  not  to  impart  to  human 
nature  something  that  does  not  inherently 
belong  to  it,  but  to  bring  forward  into 
clear  consciousness  and  fruitful  activity  the 
higher  potentialities  of  the  soul.  Says 
Browning  in  Paracelsus : 

"  Truth  is  within  ourselves  ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whate'er  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  center  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness;  and  around. 
Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 
This  perfect,  clear  perception — which  is  truth. 
A  baffling  and  perverting  carnal  mesh 
Binds  it,  and  makes  all  error  :  and,  to  know, 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without. ' ' 

What  Browning  here  says  of  truth  and 
knowledge,  we  understand  Jesus  to  say  of 
character  and  salvation.  The  very  word 
salvation  implies  the  native  richness  and 
worth  of  the  soul  that  is  to  be  saved. 


110     EDUCATIONAL  EYAXGELISM 

From  our  standpoint,  the  problem  of 
bringing  souls  to  God  shapes  itself  this 
way  :  How  shall  the  spiritual  powers  now 
dormant  in  the  soul  of  the  child  or  lying  in 
helpless  incarceration  behind  dense  walls  of 
worldliness  and  selfishness  and  sensuality  in 
the  mature  sinner,  find  their  way  forth  into 
light  and  activity  ?  How  shall  man's  capac- 
ity for  conformity  to  the  will  of  God  be 
set  free  to  realize  itself  in  action  ?  How 
shall  a  way  be  made  through  the  grossness 
and  sordidness  of  the  sinner's  character 
for  the  imprisoned  splendor  of  his  nobler 
powers  to  come  forth  ? 

The  evangelism  of  Jesus  is  our  answer  to 
these  questions.  He  knew  what  was  in 
man.  He  understood  the  human  soul. 
With  the  instinct  of  religious  genius,  he 
anticipated  those  insights  into  psycholog- 
ical law  which  have  come  to  common  men 
only  after  long  and  patient  research.  There- 
fore, modern  science  does  homage  to  the 
method  of  the  Master,  seeing  that  its  latest 
discoveries  are  but  his  primary  principles. 
By  way  of  illustration,  rather  than  of  ex- 
haustive analysis,   we  ma}^  show  how  the 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     111 

evangelism  of  Jesus  proceeded  on  three 
psychological  principles  that  have,  in  recent 
years,  come  to  be  recognized  as  fundamental 
in  all  educational  work. 

The  first  of  these  is  Suggestion.  Professor 
Baldwin  tells  us  that  Suggestion  in  psy- 
chology means  that  all  sorts  of  hints  from 
without  disturb  and  modify  the  beliefs  and 
actions  of  the  individual.  He  might  have 
added  that  these  hints  do  a  large  part  of 
their  work  below  the  line  of  consciousness. 
For  instance,  a  certain  position  in  a  certain 
little  bed  suggests  sleep  to  a  child ;  put  him 
in  that  place  and  position,  and  in  a  little 
while,  never  thinking  of  sleep  but  counting 
his  fingers  or  crooning  a  song,  he  falls  asleep. 
Sometimes  a  tune  keeps  running  in  your 
head  and  you  cannot  imagine  where  it  came 
from ;  note  its  time,  and  you  will  probably 
find  that  it  was  unconsciously  started  by  a 
knock  at  the  door,  or  the  regular  beating  of 
your  heart,  or  some  other  rhythmic  move- 
ment or  sound  that  had  not  fixed  your  at- 
tention. 

Now  the  Incarnation,  that  is,  the  presence 


112     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

of  Jesus  as  the  realized  ideal  of  manhood  in 
the  world,  is  the  permanent  Suggestion  of 
the  higher  life  for  man.  It  works  this  way : 
Christ  came  into  the  world  and  lived  a  fault- 
less life.  Before  him  there  had  been  theories, 
visions,  ideals  of  the  perfect  life;  he  made 
the  ideal  a  practical  reality  in  the  person  of 
a  flesh-and-blood  man.  Between  him  and 
other  ideals  there  is  the  difference  between 
the  actual  and  the  imaginary.  To  see  him, 
therefore,  awakens  irresistible  thought  in  a 
man  of  what  he  himself  may  be.  Christ, 
coming  into  the  field  of  his  consciousness  as 
a  real  person,  not  a  dream,  is  the  strongest 
conceivable  suggestion  of  the  possibilities  of 
his  own  personality.  This  suggestion,  work- 
ing even  subconsciously,  sets  at  work  the 
forces  which  shape  his  character  into  the 
likeness  of  Christ.  It  is  maintained  by 
good  authority,  that  it  is  the  cherishing  of  an 
ideal  that  gives  unity  to  our  consciousness. 
We  know  ourselves  in  and  by  our  ideal  of 
ourselves.  If  this  be  true,  how  incalculable 
is  the  formative  power  of  the  incarnate 
Christ  as  the  ideal  of  manhood  constantly 
present  with  men  in  a  Christian  land,  even 


THE  EVA^^GELISM  OF  JESUS     113 


in  spite  of  themselves.  It  sets  even  the  sub- 
conscious activities  of  the  soul  at  work 
making  men  Christlike. 

The  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  receives 
confirmation  and  illustration  from  the  work- 
ings of  psychologic  suggestion.  The  higher 
possibilities  of  the  soul  lie  dormant  and  do 
not  attempt  to  "  open  out  a  way  "  until  they 
are  aroused  from  without;  that  is,  until 
something  seen  or  heard  or  felt  suggests  the 
exercise  of  these  powers.  To  illustrate  from 
lower  ground,  the  instinct  of  fear  is  native 
to  every  one ;  nobody  could  ever  be  made 
afraid  of  anything  if  the  instinct  of  fear  were 
not  in  him ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  the  in- 
stinct of  fear  never  awakens  until  some  sug- 
gestion of  fear  comes  to  the  mind  from 
without ;  the  child  does  not  know  what  fear 
is  until  all  at  once  something  frightful  awak- 
ens the  sleeping  instinct.  Likewise  the  in- 
stinct of  motherhood  was  doubtless  a  pri- 
mary endowment  of  the  first  woman  ;  but  it 
never  awoke  until  there  was  a  child  to  be 
mothered.  The  instinct  of  love  resides  in 
the  inmost  sanctuary  of  each  soul,  but  only 
comes  forth  when  an  object  of  love  is  found. 


114     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

So  the  divine  life  implanted  by  the  Creator 
in  the  soul  of  man  lies  slumbering  there  un- 
til it  is  awakened  by  the  presentation  of  the 
divine  in  Christ ;  his  appearance  is  the  sug- 
gestion that  awakens  it,  and  the  response  of 
the  soul  to  this  suggestion,  the  coming  forth 
of  the  highest  in  us  to  meet  the  perfect  in 
Christ,  is  the  new  birth,  the  spiritual  awak- 
ening ;  it  is  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  second  great  psychological  principle 
on  which  Jesus  works  is  that  of  Imitation. 
Imitation  is  a  fact  as  old  as  mankind ;  its 
psychological  meaning  has  only  recently 
been  investigated.  Parents  alw^ays  knew 
that  children  were  mimics ;  it  is  only  very 
recently  that  the  immense  importance  of 
imitation  in  the  development  of  the  soul  has 
been  recognized.  When  a  child  imitates,  he 
is  doing  nothing  less  than  building  his  soul ; 
he  is  literally  making  himself.  He  is  calling 
forth  his  soul  to  self-realization  by  means  of 
his  likeness  to  that  which  he  imitates.  He 
is  enlarging  his  self-consciousness  to  include 
that  of  the  dog  or  the  horse  or  the  man  that 
he  mimics.     He  is  finding  that  he  is  a  self, 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     115 

and  that  selfhood  is  essentially  the  same  in 
him  and  in  other  persons.  By  his  imitative 
games  he  builds  into  his  soul  an  appreciation 
of  the  nature  and  value  of  the  various  trades 
and  occupations,  and  learns  to  handle  the 
materials  of  life  as  a  master. 

As  we  read  the  Gospels,  it  strikes  us  that 
imitation  was  the  main  reliance  of  Jesus, 
the  fundamental  and  abiding  method  of  his 
kingdom.  God  sent  his  Son  in  the  flesh 
that  men  might  have  true  "  copy  "  to  imi- 
tate ;  and  one  deep  tone,  thrilling  through 
all  the  music  of  Jesus'  words,  is  that  which 
bids  men  be  like  him.  Walking  by  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  he  called  his  first  disciples  with 
the  words,  "  Follow  me  " ;  and  when  all  his 
teaching  and  training  of  his  followers  were 
completed,  and,  after  the  experience  of  death 
and  resurrection,  he  stood  again  by  the  Sea 
of  Galilee  restoring  the  fallen  fisherman, 
his  farewell  word  to  Simon  Peter  was, 
"  Follow  thou  me."  To  be  a  Christian  is  to 
follow  Christ;  Christianity  is  just  the  imi- 
tation of  Christ.  The  child  by  imitation  of 
those  whom  he  sees  about  him,  builds  his 
personality  from  the  copy  thus  presented. 


116     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Even  so  we  build  our  souls  after  the  pattern 
presented  in  Christ.  By  conscious,  resolute 
striving  to  be  like  him,  we  make  his  con- 
sciousness of  fellowship  with  God,  his  con- 
formity to  the  will  of  God,  the  reality  of 
our  inner  lives.  He  is  the  Way ;  it  is  by 
imitating  him  that  we  open  out  a  path  on 
which  the  inner  splendors  of  our  souls  may 
come  forth. 

The  third  great  psychological  principle  in 
the  Master's  method  of  evangelism  is  that 
of  education  through  Apperception  of  truth. 

That  the  purpose  of  education  is  to  call 
forth  the  native  powers  of  the  soul  into  the 
world  of  action,  to  open  out  a  way  for  the 
imprisoned  splendor  to  escape,  is  a  familiar 
truism ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  this  high 
purpose  is  often  lost  from  view  in  teaching. 

' '  "We  teach  and  teach , 
Until  like  drumming  pedagogues,  we  lose 
The  thought  that  what  we  teach  has  higher  ends 
Than  being  taught  and  learned." 

The  educational  world  has  lately  been 
much  concerned  with  the  doctrine  of  apper- 
ception. Apperception  is  a  word  to  conjure 
with  in  these  days.     It  really  means  noth- 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     117 

ing,  as  Professor  James  tells  us  in  his  *'  Talks 
to  Teachers,"  but  the  way  in  which  an  idea 
is  taken  into  the  mind  ;  only,  we  must  add, 
the  doctrine  of  apperception  has  wholly 
changed  our  conception  of  the  way  in  which 
an  idea  is  taken  into  the  mind.  It  used  to 
be  thought  that  when  an  idea  was  presented 
to  the  mind,  the  perceptive  faculty  laid  hold 
of  it,  and  passed  it  over  to  the  memory  for 
safe-keeping.  Xow  it  is  known  that  no  idea 
is  ever  taken  into  the  mind  that  way ;  a 
new  idea  does  not  find  lodgment  in  the 
mind  until  the  act  of  perception  is  followed 
by  apperception  ;  that  is,  until  the  new  idea 
is  set  in  relation  with  the  other  contents  of 
the  mind.  Ideas  are  social,  never  isolated 
individuals  ;  there  is  no  such  creature  at 
large  in  the  world  as  a  man  of  one  idea. 
No  new  idea  can  be  imparted  to  the  mind 
unless  a  "  whole  troop  of  ideas  already  pres- 
ent come  forth  to  welcome  it."  What  thus 
comes  forth  to  welcome  the  new  idea  is 
often  more  important  than  that  idea  itself. 
The  educational  value  of  truth  lies  just  in 
its  power  to  call  forth  this  response  from 
within  the  soul.     The  educational  value  of 


118     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

any  particular  truth  to  any  particular  soul  is 
here.  To  a  mind  just  learning  to  count 
with  numbers,  the  truth  of  ratio  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  rule  of  three  has  no  educa- 
tional value,  because  there  are  no  ideas  in 
the  mind  ready  to  make  friends  and  keep 
company  with  this  new  one.  At  a  later 
time,  when  the  properties  of  numbers  are  a 
little  better  understood,  the  truth  of  ratio 
will  be  educative,  because  it  will  be  wel- 
comed into  the  mind,  associated  with 
thoughts  already  there,  and  so  understood. 
Education  through  apperception  of  truth 
means  that  the  soul  is  developed,  not  by  the 
impartation  of  truth  as  something  from 
without,  foreign  to  the  mind,  but  by  the  re- 
sponse of  the  soul  from  within  to  the  truth 
that  is  offered. 

ITow  a  review  of  the  teaching  and  preach- 
ing of  Jesus  shows  that  he  fully  compre- 
hended this  principle,  and  worked  upon  it. 
He  was  never  satisfied  merely  to  declare  the 
truth,  nor  did  he  have  his  followers  repeat 
his  statements  of  it  after  him  until  they 
were  memorized.  He  strove  in  every  way 
to  get  the  truth  understood,  or  apperceived. 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     119 


He  always  sought  to  make  connection  be- 
tween the  new  truth  and  the  former  con- 
tents of  his  hearers'  minds.  When  he  spoke 
the  Beatitudes,  he  dovetailed  them  into  the 
experiences  of  lowliness,  sorrow  and  thirst 
for  righteousness  that  were  present  in  the 
minds  of  his  disciples.  When  he  interpreted 
the  duties  of  his  kingdom,  he  grappled  his 
interpretation  fast  to  the  idea  of  law  with 
which  they  were  familiar.  When  he  would 
impart  a  conception  of  the  spiritual  proc- 
esses of  his  kingdom,  he  pointed  to  the 
well-known  figure  of  the  sower  in  the  field, 
or  to  the  woman  with  the  measure  of  meal, 
or  to  the  fishermen  drawing  the  net.  In  all 
his  teaching— difficult,  highly  spiritual,  di- 
vinely mysterious  as  portions  of  it  are- 
there  is  everywhere  the  effort  to  secure  the 
apperception  of  the  truth,  to  get  his  ideas 
yoked  together  with  the  common  stock-ideas 
current  in  the  minds  of  men. 

That  is  why  the  gospel  is  the  supreme 
educational  force  in  history.  Men  have 
always  wonderingly  testified  to  the  match- 
less power  of  the  gospel  to  draw  out 
the  higher  powers  of  the  soul.     Here  is  the 


120     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

reason.  The  gospel  is  educative  because  its 
Teacher  put  its  truths  before  men  in  a  form 
to  be  apperceived,  to  become  not  a  part  of 
man's  mental  store,  but  a  part  of  his  mental 
life.  The  words  of  Plato  are  a  priceless 
treasure,  but  the  words  of  Jesus  are  spirit  and 
are  life.  The  gospel  is  pure  sunshine,  draw- 
ing out  what  is  in  the  soul  as  the  sunlight 
draws  the  plant  out  of  the  seed  beneath  the 
soil ;  out  through  the  hard  shell  of  the  seed, 
up  through  the  dark  soil,  the  tender  shoot 
pushes  its  way  at  the  behest  of  the  mighty 
sun ;  so  through  the  shell  of  a  hardened 
heart,  through  dark  masses  of  habits  of  sin, 
the  spiritual  life  of  man  shoots  forth  in  re- 
sponse to  the  gospel  presented  in  Christ, 
coming  forth  from  its  prison  to  display  its 
native  splendor  and  worth,  to  blossom  and 
flourish  and  bear  fruit. 

If  we  but  understand  him,  we  shall  see 
that  all  the  significant  insights  of  modern 
psychology  and  pedagogy  into  the  needs  of 
the  growing  soul  were  anticipated  by  our 
Lord.  And  the  conviction  on  which  the 
new  evangelism  must  base  all  its  work  is 
that  the  method  which  Jesus,  in  the  davs  of 


THE  EVANGELISM  OF  JESUS     121 

his  incarnation,  used  for  bringing  men  to 
God  is  the  permanent  method.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  church  (or,  rather,  of  the  Church) 
in  a  community,  with  its  unceasing  witness 
to  the  Master  and  his  ideals,  is  the  ever- 
present  Suggestion  to  men  of  the  higher  life 
of  the  soul.  Jesus  himself,  as  presented  by 
the  Church  in  its  teaching,  and,  more  faintly 
but  more  vitally,  in  the  lives  of  its  members, 
is  the  perpetual  object  of  imitation ;  the 
"  Follow  me  "  of  Jesus  is  still  the  way  to  God. 
And  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  its  preach- 
ing of  the  Word,  its  worship  and  sacra- 
ments, are  abiding  educational  forces  by 
which  the  truth  is  offered  to  men  and  elicits 
from  their  souls  that  response  which  brings 
out  all  that  is  best  within.  There  may  be 
many  types  of  evangelism,  many  plans  for 
bringing  men  to  God  ;  but  the  evangelism 
that  follows  Jesus  must  always  be  educa- 
tional. Whatever  form  it  may  take,  in  gos- 
pel tent  or  stately  cathedral,  it  never  loses 
faith  in  the  kingdom  of  God  within  the  soul 
of  man,  or  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
the  power  to  bring  that  kingdom  forth  in 
splendid  realization. 


122     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Educational  evangelism  holds  that  the  gos- 
pel is  not  simply  a  message  to  men,  but  a 
power  to  generate  righteousness  in  their  souls 
and  develop  godliness  from  within  ;  seeks  not 
merely  to  tell  men  of  Christ,  but  to  build 
Christ  himself — his  consciousness  of  God, 
his  union  with  the  will  of  God — into  the 
personality  of  men  ;  is  not  content  to  be 
forever  repeating  the  angels'  song  of  peace 
on  earth  among  men  of  good  will,  but  says 
with  St.  Paul,  "  My  little  children,  of  whom 
I  am  again  in  travail  until  Christ  be  formed 
in  you  "  ;  understands  its  mission  to  be  not 
only  to  proclaim  the  good  news  of  Christ, 
but,  by  applying  its  good  news  as  a  compel- 
ling, formative,  educative  power  to  the  soul, 
to  fashion  the  men  of  the  world  into  the 
image  of  Christ.  This  is  an  ideal,  at  once  of 
evangelism  and  of  religious  education,  which 
Jesus  set  forth  in  his  practice,  which  the 
scientific  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  the 
soul  and  the  meaning  of  the  gospel  for  it 
supports,  and  which  the  Church  is  coming  in 
our  time  more  clearly  to  see,  and  more 
widely,  deliberately  and  joyfully  to  accept. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Personal  Adjustment 

One  of  the  profound  convictions  in  which 
modern  thought  has  resulted  is  that  the 
only  way  of  well-being  for  any  creature 
whatsoever  lies  through  felicitous  adapta- 
tion to  its  proper  environment.  Another 
conviction  equally  assured  is  that  the  life  of 
a  human  being,  with  all  its  varied  interests 
and  activities,  here  and  hereafter,  forms  a 
unity.  Human  well-being,  therefore,  re- 
quires the  adaptation  of  men  to  their  envi- 
ronment, and  permanent  well-being  requires 
a  complete  and  final  adaptation  of  the  total 
man  to  his  ultimate  environment. 

What  does  salvation  mean  to  men  whose 
thoughts  are  cast  in  the  most  modern  mold  ? 
To  the  practical  man,  to-day  as  always,  sal- 
vation is  the  reformation  of  the  outward 
life  : — the  prodigal  forsakes  his  wanton  wan- 
dering and  returns  home  ;  the  wicked  man 
123 


124     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ceases  to  do  evil  and  learns  to  do  well ;  the 
one  who  stole  steals  no  more,  but  makes 
reparation  ;  the  hateful  liar  learns  to  speak 
the  truth  in  love,  and  profane  lips  to  utter 
the  Holy  Name  in  prayer  ;  the  stiff-necked 
infidel  bows  in  worship,  the  scoffer  becomes 
a  learner,  and  the  one  who  reviled  the  exer- 
cises of  religion  leaves  his  evil  companions 
and  goes  rejoicingly  to  the  sanctuary  on  the 
Lord's  Day.  To  the  mystic  of  to-day,  sal- 
vation is  an  inward  experience  of  indescri- 
bable delight,  an  inward  peace,  a  transport  of 
spiritual  devotion,  a  bathing  of  the  spirit  in 
a  sea  of  love,  a  rapturous  assurance  that  Ave 
are  in  the  hands  of  the  Eternal  who  is  our 
Friend,  and  whose  friendliness  is  our  pledge 
of  all  blessedness  now  and  forever.  To  the 
theologian,  now  as  ever,  salvation  is  a  divine 
intervention  to  rescue  helpless  sinners  from 
a  hopeless  fate,  the  doing  of  a  work  which 
men  could  not  do,  a  work  of  infinite  mercy 
divinely  brought  to  completion  at  Calvary, 
and  being  progressively  developed  in  its  ef- 
fects upon  men  by  the  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  are  being 
saved. 


PEESONAL  ADJUSTMENT         125 

But  reflective  men  of  the  present,  whose 
thinking,  whether  they  will  or  not,  is  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  evolutionary  phi- 
losophy, are  likely,  in  the  effort  to  apprehend 
the  reality  for  which  the  name  stands,  to 
conceive  of  salvation  in  other  terms.  The 
truth  of  the  practical,  mystical  and  theolog- 
ical views  is  not  called  in  question  ;  but  an- 
other view  is  found  to  satisfy  our  ways  of 
thinking  bettei*.  In  this  view,  which  may 
be  called  the  psychological,  attention  is  con- 
centrated upon  what  takes  place  within  the 
soul  itself  that  is  being  saved.  It  has  been 
said  that  Carlyle  wrote  history  from  a  point 
of  view  within  the  actors  ;  the  effort  of  much 
recent  thought  with  regard  to  salvation  is 
precisely  to  get  this  interior  view,  and  de- 
scribe the  inward  human  reality  of  the  proc- 
ess that  sets  a  man  right  with  God. 

Viewed  thus,  salvation  is  seen  to  be  the 
attainment  by  a  human  being  of  his  final 
welfare  by  a  proper  adjustment  of  his  entire 
nature  to  his  total  environment.  The  re- 
ligious problem,  therefore,  the  same  for  all 
ages  but  acutely  accentuated  in  youth,  is  a 
problem  in  personal  adjustment. 


126     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

The  supreme  task  at  which  Nature  re- 
quires the  youth  to  labor  is  the  adjustment 
of  his  personal  life  to  the  world-life.  What- 
ever birth,  heredity  and  training  may  have 
done  or  not  done  for  him,  the  imperious  re- 
quirement of  life  is  that  he  shall  make  this 
adjustment  himself,  or  at  the  least  personally 
ratify  what  has  been  done.  The  work  ap- 
pears in  many  phases ;  the  intellectual  ac- 
tivities of  youth  have  for  their  supreme  object 
the  adjustment  of  the  mind  to  the  world  of 
truth  ;  the  efforts  of  the  boy  to  find  his 
work  point  to  the  adjustment  of  his  life  to 
the  economic  order,  his  friendships  and  love- 
making  to  his  adjustment  in  the  social  order ; 
the  interest  of  the  moral  life  of  youth  is 
likewise  chiefly  in  the  discovery  of  a  fitting 
adjustment  to  the  moral  order,  while  religion 
is  the  feeling  of  the  soul  after  its  abiding- 
place  in  the  Father's  house.  Like  a  piece  of 
intricate  machinery,  a  human  life  can  run 
smoothly  and  effective!}^  only  when  it  is 
properly  adjusted  ;  there  are  many  adjust- 
ments to  make,  and  the  tragedies  that  come 
from  maladjustment  are  numberless. 

The  commonest  mistake  of  all  is  that  of 


PEESONAL  ADJUSTMENT         127 

supposing  that  a  partial  and  temporary 
adjustment  of  life  is  a  complete  and  final 
one  ;  as  when  a  man  is  perfectly  satisfied 
with  himself  if  his  life  has  got  itself  so 
fitted  into  the  economic  order  that  he  is 
making  money,  or  a  woman  has  no  plans  for 
her  life  beyond  the  four  walls  of  a  happy 
home.  For  home  and  business,  truth  and 
right,  economic  and  social  systems,  are  but 
subordinate  parts  of  a  larger  whole.  We 
name  this  larger  whole,  which  is  the  ulti- 
mate environment  of  man's  life,  the  divine 
order.  It  is  to  this  that  he  must  adjust 
himself  before  a  continuing  blessedness  can 
be  assured  him.  The  divine  order  is  a  su- 
preme system  which  includes  all  that  can 
affect  human  welfare,  and  organizes  all 
things  material  and  spiritual  for  the  ulti- 
mate good  of  man.  Until  the  adjustment 
of  the  personal  life  to  this  order  is  settled, 
nothing  is  settled.  If  a  true  and  correct 
adjustment  is  made  here,  all  is  ready  for  a 
true  and  correct  adjustment  in  every  subor- 
dinate relation.  The  proper  adjustment  of 
life  to  this  highest  order  is  therefore  man's 
first    concern,   and    the    ancient    claim   of 


128     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

primacy  for  religion  among  human  interests 
stands  unmoved. 

Salvation,  then,  in  terms  agreeable  to 
modern  thinking,  is  the  fitting  and  per- 
manent adjustment  of  a  human  soul  to  the 
divine  order  that  envelops  all  life ;  the  soul 
that  has  found  such  adjustment  is  saved, 
here  and  hereafter  ;  no  other  is.  Or,  to  put 
the  matter  in  another  way,  salvation  is  the 
making  of  a  man  into  an  effective  personal- 
ity through  adjustment  to  those  fundamental 
conditions  of  real  effectiveness  which  are 
all  summed  up  in  the  phrase  *'  the  will  of 
God."  Every  soul  is  a  center  of  personal 
energy,  an  original  cause.  The  well-being 
of  the  soul  depends  upon  its  profitable  and 
effective  use  of  its  inherent  energy.  A  lost 
soul  is  one  whose  energy  is  dissipated  and 
ineffective  ;  a  saved  soul  one  that  is  realizing 
the  full  measure  of  its  personal  effectiveness 
within  the  eternal  order,  freely  and  effi- 
ciently applying  its  energy  to  a  work  that 
will  have  at  the  last  a  permanent  worth  for 
God. 

Such  effectiveness  of  personality  is  pos- 
sible for  a  finite  being  only  when  the  per- 


PEKSOXAL  ADJUSTMENT         129 

sonality  lias  found  its  fitting  place  and  fall 
adjustment  within  the  total  order  or  system 
of  which  its  life  is  a  little  fraction.  And 
since  it  is  the  effectiveness  of  a  free  person 
that  is  contemplated,  the  necessary  adjust- 
ment to  the  divine  order  must  be  a  free, 
personal  self -adjustment.  Hence  results 
the  conflict  between  human  freedom  and 
divine  authority,  and  the  appearance  of 
maladjustment  as  a  struggle  of  personal 
human  will  against  the  will  of  God.  Hence 
it  follows  also  that  the  true  resolution  of 
this  discord  is  man's  free  acceptance  for 
himself  of  the  divine  authority.  For  only 
he  is  free  who  is  in  harmonious  adjustment 
with  his  environment ;  no  human  power  is 
effective  unless  it  works  in  line  with  the 
superior  powers ;  the  soul  is  liberated  only 
by  conformity  to  its  world  ;  its  energies  are 
set  free,  personal  character  made  effective, 
salvation  realized,  only  by  its  willing  ad- 
aptation of  itself  to  the  requirements  of  the 
eternal  laws. 

This  is  the  paradox  of  the  gospel.  The 
soul's  liberation  for  effective  living  can  be 
accomplished  only  through  self-renunciation 


130     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

and  the  acceptance  of  a  Master ;  for  his 
mastery  is  not  restraint  or  bondage,  but 
support  and  strength. 

•'  Oh,  where  is  the  sea  ?  "  the  fishes  cried, 

As  they  swam  the  crystal  clearness  through  ; 
<<  "We've  heard  from  of  old  of  the  ocean's  tide 
And  we  long  to  look  on  the  waters  blue. 
The  wise  ones  speak  of  an  infinite  sea  ; 
Oh,  who  can  tell  us  if  such  there  be?  " 

The  lark  flew  up  in  the  morning  bright, 
And  sang  and  balanced  on  sunny  wings  ; 

And  this  was  its  song  ;  "  I  see  the  light ; 
I  look  on  a  world  of  beautiful  things  ; 

And  flying  and  singing  everywhere 

In  vain  I  have  sought  to  find  the  air. ' ' 

What  the  water  is  to  the  fishes  and  the 
air  to  the  lark,  the  spiritual  order  repre- 
sented by  Jesus  Christ  is  to  the  soul  of 
man ;  only  men  may  not  remain  so  bliss- 
fully unconscious  of  their  environment,  and 
"  whosoever  would  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it :  and  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  ray 
sake  shall  find  it  "is  the  law  of  spiritual 
adaptation  to  environment  which,  in  some 
form  or  other,  must  be  obeyed  by  ever}^ 
soul  that  becomes  an  effective  spiritual  per- 
sonality and  is  saved. 


PEESONAL  ADJUSTMENT         131 

Nothing  less  than  the  happy  adjustment 
of  the  total  life  of  man  to  its  ultimate 
environment  can  satisfy  the  conditions  of 
man's  well-being ;  nothing  less  can  be  salva- 
tion. It  must  be  admitted  that  salvation 
so  conceived  is  likely  to  appear  to  some 
practical-minded  persons  as  a  somewhat 
misty  and  remote  concern.  The  actual, 
practical  endeavor  with  which  we  are  com- 
monly employed  is  to  adjust  ourselves 
to  the  world  of  custom  and  convention  in 
which  we  happen  to  live,  to  make  ourselves 
effective  and  successful  in  that  sphere  of 
practical  activity  in  which  our  w^ork  is 
done.  Yet  at  this  point  w^e  are  to  recall  a 
marked  feature  of  youth's  estrangement — 
the  rebellion  of  so  many  young  people 
against  conventions,  their  demand  for  a 
better  reason  than  custom,  vrhich  is,  in 
effect,  a  demand  to  know  the  true  order. 
By  whatever  terms  we  may  express  it,  the 
fact  beneath  the  experiences  of  spiritual 
and  moral  unrest  in  youth,  and  the  distress 
and  longings  of  seekers  after  salvation  in 
later  years,  is  the  demand  of  the  soul  for 
right  adjustment  to  that  order  of  life  which  is 


132     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

actually  supreme  and  divine,  an  adjustment 
that  shall  be  final  for  time  and  eternity,  and 
so  bring  peace  and  permanent  satisfaction 
to  the  soul. 

If,  then,  salvation  is  a  free,  full,  final, 
personal  adjustment  to  the  divine  order,  it 
is  manifest  that  in  securing  it  the  personal 
will  is  the  paramount  factor.  Let  other 
factors  work  with  what  force  they  may,  the 
problem  of  the  soul's  salvation  remains  at 
center  forever  the  same — to  get  men  freely, 
willingly,  gladly,  to  surrender  themselves  to 
the  direction  of  a  higher  power;  or,  more 
concretely,  to  submit  themselves  to  the 
Lordship  of  Christ.  By  whatever  path  a 
man  may  approach  salvation,  he  will  find  it 
at  last  in  a  glad,  energetic  choice  and  appro- 
priation of  Christ  and  his  character  as  his 
highest  good  in  time  and  eternity,  a  choice 
that  differs  from  mere  reluctant  consent  to 
the  truth  and  acknowledgment  of  duty  as 
the  sunlight  differs  from  a  flickering  candle 
flame.  That  adjustment  of  life  which  brings 
it  into  line  with  God's  order  may  be  pro- 
moted by  a  thousand  influences  more  or  less 
effective,  but  it  must  be  brought  about  at 


PERSONAL  ADJUSTMENT         133 

last  by  the  decisive  action  of  the  man's  own 
will. 

What  are  we  to  do  to  help  children, 
youths  and  men  to  make  that  decisive 
choice?  Since  adjustment  to  the  divine 
order  must  be  made  by  act  of  will,  how  are 
we  to  go  about  it  to  win  the  wills  of  men 
for  God  ?  The  modern  psychology  of  the 
will  offers  a  significant  suggestion. 

The  first  proposition  of  recent  psychology 
is  that  the  soul  in  all  its  processes  and  mani- 
festations acts  as  a  unit.  Beginning  with 
the  facts  of  consciousness  and  making  crit- 
ical observations  of  the  changes  that  occur 
as  sensations,  thoughts,  reasonings,  passions 
and  purposes  go  streaming  through  the  mind, 
the  most  rigid  analysis  fails  to  divide  the 
soul.  The  soul  is  not  cellular  in  structure, 
is  not  made  up  of  parts,  great  or  small.  The 
old  psychology  mapped  out  the  geography 
of  the  soul,  as  it  were,  in  the  belief  that  the 
different  faculties  unite  to  constitute  the 
mind  somewhat  as  the  different  States  unite 
to  make  up  the  Union.  It  was  a  fascinating 
analogy  which  found  various  faculties  in  the 


134     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

soul  to  do  different  things,  as  the  body  has 
eyes  to  see,  ears  to  hear,  and  feet  to  walk. 
But  present-day  psychology  has  utterly  aban- 
doned this  ground.  The  study  of  conscious- 
ness reveals  no  such  division  of  function. 
There  is  one  field  of  consciousness,  and  only 
one — in  normal  persons.  And  in  this  field 
of  consciousness  there  is  just  one  actor ;  one 
indivisible  personal  soul  that  throws  him- 
self as  a  whole  into  all  his  acts  of  perceiv- 
ing, remembering,  reasoning,  feeling  and  the 
like.  It  is  not  memory  that  remembers,  but 
the  soul;  it  is  not  reason  that  argues,  but 
the  soul ;  it  is  not  imagination  that  con- 
structs, but  the  soul ;  it  is  not  the  will  that 
decrees  action,  but  the  soul.  The  soul  him- 
self attends  to  all  of  these  functions,  dele- 
gating nothing  to  subordinate  agents. 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  problem  of 
winning  the  will  is  plain.  The  will  never 
acts  alone ;  and  the  attempt  to  win  the  will 
without  convincing  the  reason  and  satisfy- 
ing the  heart  is  vain.  Whatever  the  free- 
dom of  the  will  may  mean,  it  is  certain  that 
acts  of  will  are  never  independent  of  other 
mental    processes.     The    intellectual,   emo- 


PEESONAL  ADJUSTMENT         135 

tional  and  volitional  activities  of  the  soul 
can  be  separated  in  thought,  and  must,  for 
scientific  clearness  of  understanding,  be  dis- 
tinguished ;  actually,  they  coexist  and  are 
inseparable.  Neither  ideas  alone,  nor  feel- 
ings alone,  nor  volitions  alone,  ever  have 
exclusive  possession  of  the  field  of  conscious- 
ness. Every  act  of  will  is  conditioned  by 
all  the  thoughts  and  feelings  present  to  the 
mind,  and  by  the  tendencies,  prejudices  and 
habits  that  have  become  characteristic  of 
the  individual.  The  appeal  to  the  will, 
therefore,  must  be  an  appeal  to  the  whole 
mental  and  Spiritual  organization,  the  entire 
soul. 

Just  what  is  needed  to  secure  right  ac- 
tion of  the  personal  will  appears  more 
clearly  from  these  quotations  from  Pro- 
fessor James'  popular  "  Talks  to  Teachers." 
"  All  our  deeds  were  considered  by  the  early 
psychologists  to  be  due  to  a  peculiar  faculty 
called  the  will,  without  whose  fiat  action 
could  not  occur.  Thoughts,  impressions,  be- 
ing intrinsically  inactive,  were  supposed  to 
produce  conduct  only  through  the  inter- 
mediation   of   this    superior    agent.     Until 


136     EDUCATIONAL  EYAXGELLSM 

they  twitched  its  coat-tails,  so  to  speak,  no 
outward  behavior  could  occur.  .  .  .  The 
fact  is,  there  is  no  sort  of  consciousness 
whatever,  be  it  sensation,  feeling  or  idea, 
which  does  not  directly  and  of  itself  tend 
to  discharge  into  some  motor  effect.  .  .  . 
A  belief  as  fundamental  as  any  in  modern 
psychology,  is  the  belief  at  last  attained, 
that  conscious  processes  of  any  sort,  con- 
scious processes  merely  as  such,  must  pass 
over  into  motion,  open  or  concealed."  The 
problem  of  right  choice,  then,  is  simply  to 
find  and  bring  to  the  fore  the  right  idea. 
Sometimes  the  mind  is  hostile  to  that  idea 
when  found,  dislikes  to  entertain  it,  and  a 
resolute  effort  of  voluntary  attention  is  re- 
quired to  drag  it  into  the  focus  of  the  field 
of  consciousness  and  keep  it  there  long 
enough  for  its  effects  to  be  secured.  Once 
brought,  however,  in  this  way  to  the  center 
of  the  field,  and  held  there,  the  reasonable 
idea  will  exert  those  effects  inevitably,  auto- 
matically ;  for  the  laws  of  connection  be- 
tween our  consciousness  and  our  nervous 
system  provide  for  the  action  then  taking 
place.     "  If  then,  you  are  asked.  In  what 


PEKSONAL  ADJUSTMENT         137 

does  a  moral  act  consist,  when  reduced  to 
its  simplest  and  most  elementary  form  ?  you 
can  make  only  one  reply.  You  can  say 
that  it  consists  in  the  effort  of  attention  by 
which  we  hold  fast  to  an  idea  which  but 
for  that  effort  of  attention  would  be  driven 
out  of  the  mind  by  the  other  psychological 
tendencies  there.  To  think,  in  short,  is  the 
secret  of  will." 

The  immediate  connection  between  ideas 
and  actions,  thus  established  by  modern 
psychology,  is  of  the  first  importance  for 
evangelism.  It  was  formerly  believed  that 
thoughts  arouse  feelings  and  feelings  appeal 
to  the  will  as  motives  for  action.  That 
psychology  was  responsible  for  the  preach- 
ing— and  the  still  more  feebly  sentimental 
teaching — that  depends  upon  emotional  ap- 
peals for  its  effect  upon  the  will.  But  feel- 
ing is  not  now  regarded  by  psychologists  as 
a  consequent  of  thought  and  an  antecedent 
of  action,  but  as  an  accompaniment  of  both. 
Feeling  is  the  mind's  appreciation  of  its 
own  activities  or  states,  and  it  is  just  as 
true  that  we  feel  because  we  act  as  that  we 
act  because  we  feel.     Feeling  has  no  more 


138     EDUCATIONAL  EVAis^GELlJSM 

immediate  power  over  the  will  than  thought, 
since  every  idea  tends  of  itself  to  become 
an  act  without  waiting  for  any  mediation 
whatsoever. 

The  act  of  will  by  which  a  life  is  brought 
into  adjustment  to  the  will  of  God  is  not 
different  in  its  essential  features  from  the 
simplest  ideomotor  discharge.  It  is  not  to 
be  conceived  as  a  mighty  effort  of  the  self- 
determining  faculty  under  stress  of  intense 
emotional  excitement  awakened  by  the 
sanctions  with  which  some  such  appeal  as 
"  Choose  you  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve  " 
is  enforced,  but  as  the  automatic  conse- 
quence of  voluntary  attention  given  to  the 
idea  of  personal  fellowship  with  God  until 
that  idea  has  become  winning,  dominant, 
masterful.  Whence  it  follows,  as  a  regula- 
tive principle  for  evangelism,  that  the  sal- 
vation of  human  souls  is  to  be  promoted 
chiefly  by  getting  religious  ideas  into  the 
focus  of  attention.  The  task  of  the  preacher 
or  the  teacher  who  would  win  the  wills  of 
men  is  to  get  the  right  idea  of  personal  re- 
lation with  God  into  the  focus  of  their  con- 
sciousness, and  hold  it  there  until  it  pro- 


peeso:n^al  adjustment      139 


duces  the  desired  action.     It  is  all  a  matter 
of  sustained  interest  and  attention.     What 
people  may  feel  is  a  question  that  may  be 
left  entirely  out  of  consideration.     Of  course 
they  will  feel,  and  feel  deeply,  when  great 
thoughts  are  adequately  set  before  them ; 
but  they  will  act,  not  because  of  what  they 
feel,  but  because  the  right  idea  of  action 
has  been  held  in  the  focus  of  their  minds 
until  the  action  becomes  inevitable.     The 
true  preaching  to  the  will  is  the  preaching 
of  ideas ;  or,  better,  the  preaching  of  one 
idea  at  a  time  until  the  work  of  that  idea  is 
done.     The  effective  preacher  is  not  the  one 
who   moves  his  congregation   to  smiles  or 
tears  most  readily,  but  the  one  who  succeeds 
in  grappling  an  idea  drawn  from  the  Word 
of  God  into  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  inter- 
locking it  with  the  ideas  already  there  so 
that  it  becomes  a  permanent  element  of  the 
mental  life.     Ideas  so  implanted  determine 
conduct  and  character,  and  the  preaching 
that  effects  this,  accomplishes  the  one  thing 
needful. 

Our  conception  of  the  decisive  act  of  will 
as  the  automatic  result  of  ideas  dominant  in 


140     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

the  mind  is  in  no  way  modified  by  consider- 
ation of  those  cases  of  instantaneous  con- 
version which  are  so  impressive  a  feature 
of  the  history  of  religion,  or  of  those  other 
cases  of  prolonged  struggles  terminated  at 
last  by  a  single  act  of  conscious  volition. 
For  the  suddenness  of  the  final  issue  does 
not  prove  the  absence  of  that  brooding  over 
the  ideas  of  religion  which  would  normally 
result  in  such  action.  It  is  beyond  a  doubt 
that  such  brooding  often  takes  place  sub- 
consciously. Ideas  once  lodged  in  the  mind 
sink  out  of  sight ;  but  they  disappear  like 
seeds,  to  burst  forth  again  with  the  surpris- 
ing power  of  new  life.  A  sudden  conver- 
sion, or  the  sudden  settling  of  a  question 
long  debated,  is  to  be  attributed,  not  to  a 
simple,  sheer,  heroic  decision,  but  to  the 
sudden  discovery  of  the  full  meaning  and 
power  of  an  idea  perhaps  long  present  to 
the  mind,  but  hitherto  disregarded.  The  re- 
sult appears  instantaneously,  as  a  precipitate 
appears  in  a  clear  liquid  the  instant  a  cer- 
tain chemical  reagent  is  introduced  ;  but  as 
there  is  no  precipitate  unless  the  substance 
to  form  it  is  already  there,  although  held  in 


PERSONAL  ADJUSTMENT         141 

invisible  solution,  so  there  can  be  no  con- 
version unless  the  soul  has  been  made  ready 
for  it  by  the  presence  of  specific  religious 
ideas. 

If  a  man  is  to  act  as  a  child  of  God,  he 
must  begin  by  thinking  of  himself  as  a  child 
of  God.  It  is  in  the  effort  of  thought  re- 
quired to  hold  such  an  idea  before  the  mind 
that  men  exercise  "  the  will  to  believe."  In 
order  that  the  idea  may  work  its  appropriate 
result ;  in  order,  for  example,  that  the  idea 
of  a  public  confession  of  Christ  may  result 
in  an  actual  confession  of  faith  in  him,  it  is 
usually  necessary  for  the  idea  to  be  held 
prominently  before  the  mind,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  hostile  and  unsympathetic  ideas,  for 
a  considerable  period  of  time.  Here  is  the 
psychological  reason  that  makes  special  sea- 
sons of  religious  interest  desirable.  So  oc- 
cupied are  people  with  other  things,  that  it 
is  exceedingly  difficult  to  secure  effective 
attention  to  religious  matters  unless  they 
are  set  forth  as  the  special  subject  for  a 
given  season.  Hence,  one  day  in  seven  is 
reserved  as  a  time  of  rest  from  worldly 
work,  and  thought  on  sacred  themes  ;  hence. 


142     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISJM 

churches  endeavor,  by  the  observance  of 
Lent,  and  the  Week  of  Prayer,  by  holding 
revival  meetings,  by  appointing  Decision 
Days,  and  similar  methods,  to  secure  con- 
tinuous attention  to  the  main  ideas  of  relig- 
ion until  suitable  action  follows. 

Such  seasons  are  also  agreeable  to  that 
law  of  the  mind  which  decrees  that  interest, 
especially  the  collective  interest  of  the  com- 
munity, shall  come  and  go  in  waves.  Waves 
of  unusual  religious  interest  are  to  be  ex- 
pected, just  because  religion  is  one  of  the 
concerns  to  which  the  minds  of  men  return 
again  and  again.  But  when  such  a  wave 
comes,  religious  leaders  do  well  to  remember 
that  its  value  lies  wholly  in  its  effectiveness 
in  fixing  attention  upon  religious  ideas. 
Except  as  it  promotes  earnest,  sober,  per- 
sonal thought,  it  is  likely  to  do  more  harm 
than  good.  No  appeal  is  to  be  tolerated  to 
anything  less  than  the  whole  religious  na- 
ture of  men.  The  only  converts  worth  hav- 
ing are  those  whose  minds  are  satisfied  as 
fully  as  their  hearts.  When  revivalists  learn 
to  take  advantage  of  these  seasons  of  excep- 
tional interest,  not  to  appeal  to  the  emotions 


PEKSONAL  ADJUSTMENT         143 


and  harrow  the  souls  of  men,  or  to  urge, 
threaten  or  cajole  them  into  "taking  a 
stand "  under  the  unusual  pressure  of  the 
time,  but  to  bring  before  their  minds  in  the 
most  winning  way  the  richest,  loftiest, 
sweetest  truths  of  our  religion,  that  they 
may  come  under  the  sway  of  splendid  ideas 
and  eternal  verities,  there  will  be  fewer 
backsliders  among  the  converts,  and  less 
ground  for  objection  to  revivals  as  a  method 
of  seeking  to  save  souls. 

But  the  unmistakable  conclusion  to  which 
this  line  of  thought  points  is  that  the  most 
significant  work  that  can  be  done  to  pro- 
mote the  salvation  of  men  is  the  work  of 
him  who  furnishes  the  young  mind  with  its 
ideas  of  religion.  The  truths  of  the  gospel, 
inwrought  into  the  mind  by  methods  that 
are  in  essence  educational,  are  more  efficacious 
in  winning  the  wills  of  men  than  any  other 
instruments  whatever.  This  is  the  secret  of 
the  enormous  power  in  all  times  of  the  faith- 
ful teaching  and  the  instructive  preaching 
of  the  Word  of  God.  Christian  culture,  as 
distinguished  from  Christian  nurture,  is  the 


144     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

work  of  holding  before  the  minds  of  children, 
youths  and  men  the  essential  truths  of  the 
Christian  religion,  in  the  confidence  that 
these  truths,  when  actually  received  into  the 
minds  of  the  hearers,  will  of  themselves  do 
the  work  of  adjusting  their  lives  to  the 
divine. 

Here  is  the  splendid  opportunity  of 
the  Christian  teacher.  The  mind  of  youth 
picks  up  ideas  everywhere— strange,  fan- 
tastic ones,  sometimes ;  the  boy  collects  his 
notions  about  religion  from  parents,  preach- 
ers, friends,  reading,  church  services,  a  score 
of  sources ;  but  it  is  passing  strange  if  the 
teacher  to  whom  he  brings  his  mind  every 
week  like  an  empty  vessel  to  be  filled  does 
not  furnish  some  of  the  greatest  and  most 
influential  of  them.  The  work  of  teaching 
is  infinitely  varied,  its  forms  manifold.  It  is 
shared  by  every  one  who  succeeds  in  clutch- 
ing an  important  idea  into  another's  mind, 
so  that  it  becomes  an  operative  part  of 
his  mental  machinery.  But  whether  done 
in  the  pulpit  or  the  class-room  or  the 
home  or  the  street,  it  is  a  work  of  un- 
paralleled  efficiency  in  adjusting  youth  to 


PEESONAL  ADJUSTMENT         145 

life.  Let  the  truths  of  the  gospel  be  ac- 
tually taught,  held  in  the  focus  of  atten- 
tion until  they  become  an  inalienable  por- 
tion of  the  mental  store,  and  their  effect  will 
duly  appear  in  conduct  and  character.  The 
Spirit  waits  Qpon  truth  so  received,  and  God 
is  pleased  to  impart  the  divine  life  to  men 
by  its  means.  And  the  conclusion  of  the 
argument  is  established  beyond  a  doubt 
when  we  take  the  testimony  of  the  Christian 
centuries ;  for  excepting  only  a  few  short 
periods,  they  all  agree  that  the  teacher  is 
the  prince  among  evangelists. 


CHAPTEK  VII 
A  Graded  Gospel 

The  evangelism  that  obeys  Him  who  gave 
separate  commands  to  feed  the  lambs  and 
tend  the  sheep  will  provide  a  graded  gospel. 
Only  a  gospel  that  is  graded  by  the  needs 
of  the  hearers  can  save  those  of  different 
grades ;  only  a  gospel  that  grows  with  the 
growing  soul  can  make  Christian  children 
into  Christian  men  and  women. 

There  is  a  type  of  evangelism  that  is  too 
busy  asserting  its  confidence  in  the  power  of 
the  one  old  gospel  to  save  all  human  souls  to 
pay  much  heed  to  this  requirement.  I^ever- 
theless,  this  long  overlooked  command  of  the 
Master  is  being  forced  into  prominence. 
The  demand  for  graded  work  in  religious 
education  has  become  too  insistent  to  be 
longer  ignored.  The  principle  is  winning 
recognition  that  the  Church  is  bound  to 
adapt  its  message  to  hearers  of  every  stage 
of  development  as  well  as  to  those  of  every 
146 


A  GEADED  GOSPEL  147 


race  and  kindred.  A  host  of  earnest  men 
and  women  are  laboring  to  put  the  religious 
training  of  the  young  upon  a  sound  psycho- 
logical and  pedagogical  basis,  and  to  evolve 
a  system  that  shall  advance  from  grade  to 
grade  in  accordance  with  established  educa- 
tional principles  ;  already  much  has  been  ac- 
complished, and  the  movement  has  gathered 
a  momentum  that  will  carry  it  to  its  goal. 

Yet  it  may  be  modestly  doubted  whether, 
in  general,  the  problem  has  been  fairly 
grasped.  Inadequate  conceptions  of  the 
nature  and  aims  of  a  true  system  of  educa- 
tional evangelism  are  responsible  for  much 
waste  of  energy  and  much  inefficient  work. 
Because  of  them  many  are  doing  the  un- 
necessary and  attempting  the  impossible. 
In  particular,  the  analogy  of  the  graded 
public  school  has  been  too  strong  for  some, 
and  the  confusion  of  religious  with  intel- 
lectual education  has  led  many  astray.  It 
may  be  well  to  keep  up  with  the  public 
schools,  but  it  is  not  needful  to  ape  their 
futile  experiments,  or  be  in  haste  to  adopt 
methods  which  they  are  about  to  abandon. 
By  all  means,  let  the  work  of  religious  edu- 


148     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

cation  be  pursued  by  the  most  approved 
modern  methods  and  take  advantage  of  the 
experience  of  the  day-schools  ;  but  let  it  not 
be  imagined  that  graded  Bible-schools  and 
lesson  helps,  graded  teaching  of  the  con- 
tents of  Scripture  and  the  substance  of 
Christian  doctrine,  insure  the  proper  grading 
of  the  gospel.  The  fact  must  be  admitted, 
for  fact  it  is,  stubborn  and  immovable  as  a 
rock,  that  the  attempt  to  equal  in  the  Sun- 
day-school the  thoroughness  and  eflSciency 
in  instruction  of  the  public  school  is  not 
likely  to  meet  with  general  success  until  all 
the  teaching  is  done  by  paid  professional 
teachers  and  all  the  scholars  are  compelled 
to  attend.  And  we  can  watch  that  expecta- 
tion fade  and  vanish  in  the  mists  of  im- 
measurable distance  without  regret,  because 
such  instruction,  at  the  best,  could  make 
only  good  Biblical  scholars,  not  Christians. 
If  the  work  of  the  Bible-school  and  kin- 
dred organizations  is  to  promote  in  any 
effective  manner  that  personal  adjustment 
of  the  pupil  to  the  divine  order  which  is 
the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  object  of  religious 
education,  the  right  principle  must  be  found 


A  GEADED  GOSPEL  149 

to  govern  the  grading  of  the  lessons  and 
the  construction  of  the  system ;  and  once 
found,  it  must  be  faithfully  followed.  At 
this  point  the  present  writer  would  imitate 
a  well-known  philosopher,  and,  foregoing  all 
attempts  to  construct  a  perfect  system  or 
an  ideal  curriculum  himself,  would  offer  cer- 
tain prolegomena  to  all  future  systems  and 
curricula. 

The  grading  of  Biblical  and  doctrinal  in- 
struction is  an  important  matter,  but  it  is 
not  the  grading  of  the  gospel.  The  intel- 
lectual elements  of  religion  should  be  pre- 
sented in  appropriate  connection  and  se- 
quence to  growing  minds,  but  the  emphatic 
demand  of  the  present  is  for  a  properly 
graded  presentation  of  the  whole  of  religion 
to  growing  souls.  The  gospel  itself,  the 
good  news  embodied  in  Jesus  Christ,  has  its 
appropriate  grades  for  such  presentation. 
It  is  these  grades  that  educational  evangel- 
ism must  discover  and  put  to  use.  Chris- 
tian teachers  must  learn  the  difference  be- 
tween a  course  of  graded  Bible  lessons  and 
a  graded  gospel. 

Educators  have  made  a  thorough  study  of 


150     EDUCATIONAL  EVAKGEL18M 

all  the  stages  of  the  soul's  development 
from  infancy  to  age.  At  every  stage  the 
characteristic  reactions  of  the  soul,  intel- 
lectual, emotional  and  volitional,  have  been 
noted.  The  pedagogical  maxims  that  follow 
from  the  order  of  the  soul's  development 
have  been  carefully  formulated,  and  the 
system  of  education  framed  in  accordance 
with  them. 

At  every  stage  of  development,  the  soul 
has  also  its  characteristic  religious  reactions. 
They  are  not  the  operations  of  a  special 
faculty,  but  the  reaction  of  the  entire  spir- 
itual nature  upon  a  certain  kind  of  material. 
They  therefore  involve  all  the  character- 
istics of  the  soul ;  they  are  conditioned  by 
and  akin  to  its  intellectual,  emotional  and 
volitional  characteristics.  There  is,  as  a 
consequence,  a  characteristic  religion  of 
childhood,  of  adolescence,  of  youth,  of  man- 
hood and  of  age.  There  is  also,  we  insist, 
a  gospel,  a  characteristic  Christian  gospel, 
for  each  of  these  periods  ;  a  gospel  designed 
by  its  divine  Author  to  elicit  wholesome 
and  saving  reactions  in  the  growing  soul  at 
every  stage. 


A  GEADED  GOSPEL  151 


It  is  true  that  there  is  only  one  gospel  for 
Jew  and  Greek  and  barbarian,  for  child  and 
youth  and  man.  Yet  the  gospel  for  man- 
hood does  differ  from  the  gospel  for  infancy. 
The  difference  is  not  in  its  content,  its  sub- 
ject-matter; that  is  everywhere  the  same. 
The  gospel  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  Divine 
Person ;  that  is  the  only  gospel,  and  noth- 
ing else  ever  is  gospel.  The  difference  is  in 
the  appeal  which  this  Divine  Person  makes 
to  the  soul.  The  gradation  of  the  gospel  is 
the  gradation  of  its  appeals.  The  divine 
personality,  in  order  to  impress  itself  upon 
a  human  soul,  addresses  itself  now  to  one, 
now  to  another  characteristic  activity  of  the 
soul,  as  one  or  the  other  is  dominant. 

A  Christian  man's  religion,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  psychology,  is  just  the  way  his 
soul  works  upon  the  material  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  that  material  is  the  divine  life  in 
the  human,  as  presented  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Eeligious  education,  if  Christian,  must 
therefore  be  the  training  of  the  soul  to 
react  correctly  and  effectively  upon  this 
material.  And  the  one  canon  to  guide  the 
educator  is  that  this  material — the  correct 


152     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

material,  the  divine  life  in  the  world,  God 
in  man — must  be  presented  to  the  soul  at 
every  stage  of  its  development,  in  accord 
ance  with  its  present  capacity  for  correct 
reactions,  and  as  a  stimulus  to  such  reac- 
tions. The  instruction  that  presents  Christ 
in  such  a  way  is  at  once  educative  and 
evangelistic. 

What  is  meant  by  a  graded  gospel,  then, 
is  this  : — that  the  personality  of  Jesus,  as  the 
union  of  man  with  God,  is  so  presented  in 
the  New  Testament,  and  is  to  be  so  pre- 
sented in  Christian  teaching,  as  to  make  a 
fitting  and  effective  appeal  even  to  the  soul 
of  the  infant,  eliciting  a  response  marked 
by  the  psychological  characteristics  of  in- 
fancy indeed,  but  also  characteristically 
Christian,  an  infant's  Christianity ;  that 
this  divine  personalit}^,  properly  presented, 
makes  a  like  fitting  and  effective  appeal  to 
childhood,  evoking  a  reaction  of  the  soul 
that  is  characteristically  childish  and  Chris- 
tian ;  that  likewise  from  the  souls  of  youths 
and  men  it  calls  forth  a  response  tiiaL  in 
every  case  combines  the  characteristics  of 
youth  or  manhood  with  those  of  Christianity. 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  153 

The  one  business  of  religious  education  is  to 
present  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  for  which  he 
stands,  life  divine,  human  life  divinized,  in 
such  a  way  as  to  call  forth  the  fitting 
response  of  the  soul  at  every  stage  of  its 
growth. 

iVs  necessary  prolegomena  to  any  effective 
system  of  education  in  the  Christian  religion, 
we  would  therefore  lay  down  the  follow- 
ing propositions  :  that  the  essential  subject- 
matter  of  religion  is  the  union  of  man  with 
God,  that  this  subject-matter  is  embodied  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  his  divine 
personality  makes  a  distinctive  appeal,  which 
is  religiously  educative,  to  human  souls  of 
every  degree  of  intelligence  and  at  every 
stage  of  development,  and  that  therefore 
the  essential  thing  in  any  scheme  of  relig- 
ious education  is  the  proper  presentation  of 
the  divine  person,  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  evident 
that  the  very  conception  of  religious  educa- 
tion requires  us  to  keep  the  evangelistic  pur- 
pose to  the  fore  ;  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
For  if  education  is  the  drawing  out  of  the 
soul,  can  religious  education  be  anything 
else   than    the  drawing  out  of  the  soul  to- 


154     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ward  God  ?  That  is  evangelism,  too.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  religious  teaching  that  fails 
to  be  educational  just  because  it  does  not 
draw  out  the  soul  toward  God,  but  leaves 
it  as  far  from  him  as  before. 

What  is  the  true  order  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  Divine  Person  to  growing 
minds  ? 

St.  Paul  was  wise  enough  to  feed  new 
disciples  with  milk  and  not  with  meat.  It 
should  need  no  argument  to  show  that  the 
personality  of  Jesus  cannot  possibly  mean 
the  same  thing  to  infants  and  grown  men,  and 
that  children  should  not  be  schooled  in  the 
religion  of  maturity.  Common  sense  should 
tell  us,  but  it  does  not  always,  and  proof  has 
been  gathered  by  careful  observers,  that 
children  cannot  possibly  appreciate  the 
higher  altruistic  teaching  of  Christ  or  the 
deepest  religious  experiences  of  men.  To 
train  children  to  use  the  language  and 
imitate  the  experiences  of  adult  religion 
is  to  make  them  little  hypocrites  first  and 
great  skeptics  afterward. 

But  because  the  children  cannot  ap- 
preciate the  highest  reaches  of  the  gospel, 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  155 

it  does  not  follow  that  the  personality  of 
Jesus  lacks  all  attractive  force  for  them, 
and  that  a  scientific  religious  pedagogy  re- 
quires all  teaching  concerning  him  to  be  de- 
ferred to  later  years.  It  is  not  less  of  the 
life  and  personality  of  Jesus  that  the  little 
ones  need ;  it  is  less  of  our  mature  thoughts 
and  theories  about  him. 

The  infant  mind  lies  very  close  to  God  ; 
the  divine — not  the  philosophical  Absolute 
or  the  theological  Infinite — but  the  divine  in 
the  human,  the  God  in  Christ,  is  a  natural 
object  of  interest  to  it.  The  child  looks 
vvonderingly  but  believingly  upon  the 
marvelous  workings  of  God  in  the  world. 
He  loves  stories,  the  more  wonderful  the 
better,  and  stories  are  his  proper  spiritual 
food.  But  the  very  foremost  consideration  in 
the  religious  teaching  of  little  children  is  this  : 
that  no  story,  howsoever  fascinating,  has  any 
value  whatever  for  purposes  of  religious 
education  unless  it  exhibits  or  illustrates  in 
some  way  the  workings  of  the  divine  in  the 
human,  God  in  the  world  and  in  man.  That 
God  is  working  in  this  wondrous  world 
about  us,  that  human  life  is  all  shot  through 


156     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

with  glory  by  the  unseen  powers  of  divinity, 
that  heaven  lies  about  us  in  this  world — 
that  is  a  truth  profoundly  educative  for  in- 
fancy and  early  childhood.  It  is  the  truth 
which  the  Old  Testament  stories  teach.  It 
can  be  impressed  by  many  stories  from  out- 
side the  Bible  if  caution  be  observed  to  make 
the  line  of  distinction  very  plain  between  the 
stories  that  simply  illustrate  what  might 
take  place  and  those  which  teach  that  the 
true  God  did  actually  work  as  represented. 
Parables  have  their  place,  and  fables,  too. 
But  teachers  are  never  to  teach  as  true 
what  they  regard  as  imaginative  ;  if  religion 
is  not  to  be  honeycombed  with  insincerity 
the  tales  of  pagan  superstition  must  not  be 
put  upon  an  equal  footing  in  the  child's 
mind  with  the  records  of  Scripture ;  stories 
of  the  gods  which  Plato  would  not  have  in 
his  Kepublic  two  thousand  years  ago  may 
well  be  spared  from  Christian  homes  and 
Sunday-schools  now.  And  by  the  same 
token,  the  teacher  must  distinguish  among 
the  stories  in  the  Bible  itself  those  that  are 
to  be  taken  literally  and  those  that  portray 
truths  but  do  not  represent  facts. 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  157 

The  superlative  stories  for  infancy  and 
early  childhood,  which  represent  the  work- 
ings of  God  in  the  world  and  in  man  most 
truthfully  and  most  adequately,  are  the 
stories  of  Jesus.  To  tell  them  to  little  chil- 
dren, without  explanation,  theory  or  com- 
ment, is  to  make  the  most  effective  possible 
presentation  of  the  great  subject-matter  of 
religion.  They,  better  than  anything  else, 
make  God  real  to  the  infant  soul.  Even 
those  to  whom  the  God  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob  seems  to  be  only  a  mon- 
strous man,  a  magnified  Power,  understand 
that  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  a  loving  person.  Some  things  con- 
cerning our  Lord's  life  and  passion  the  little 
ones  cannot  understand ;  but  if  the  object 
of  religious  education  is  Christian  character, 
the  child's  mind  cannot  be  too  early  sup- 
plied with  the  distinctive  Christian  material 
of  religion,  the  old,  old  story  of  Jesus  and 
his  love. 

After  the  first  acquisitive,  trustful  years 
of  early  childhood,  there  comes  a  period  of 
doubt.     The  mind  begins  to  demand  reasons 


158     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

and  estimate  probabilities.  Things,  that 
cannot  readily  be  understood  are  now  often 
met  with  outright  skepticism  ;  and  that,  too, 
long  before  adolescent  disturbances  begin. 
In  this  period  the  miraculous  element  in 
God's  dealings  with  men  is  likely  to  raise 
serious  questions,  and  should  not  be  unduly 
urged  upon  the  attention.  For  another  in- 
terest has  come  forward.  The  child  is  get- 
ting the  outlines  of  that  which  is  "  everlast- 
ingly so "  settled  in  his  mind ;  and  his 
incipient  conviction  that  there  is  a  law 
which  changes  not  had  best  not  be  disturbed 
by  apparent  miraculous  violations  of  law  ; 
for  on  the  proper  crystallization  of  this  con- 
viction the  moral  vigor  of  his  spirit  de- 
pends; he  is  laying  the  foundations  of 
conscience. 

The  nature  and  importance  of  this  process 
become  more  clear  from  the  following  con- 
sideration. Two  kinds  of  relations  make 
up  our  lives:  necessary  relations  in  which  we 
stand  by  virtue  of  our  humanity,  and  free 
personal  relations  into  which  we  enter  by 
choice.  In  childhood,  attention  is  directed 
chiefly  to  the  necessary  relations.     The  child 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  159 

is  here  without  choice  of  his  own ;  he  is 
busy  learning  that  there  is  a  world  about 
him  ;  he  accepts  what  he  finds.  He  learns 
that  with  his  parents,  his  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, his  home  and  general  surroundings,  he 
stands  in  relations  over  which  he  has  no 
power. 

Note  now  that  it  is  in  this  region  of 
necessary  relationships  that  law  and  con- 
science are  grounded.  It  is  because  certain 
things  are  necessarily  so,  that  we  are  bound 
to  make  certain  other  things  thus  and  so. 
It  is  because  we  stand  in  necessary  relations 
with  our  parents  that  we  ought  to  honor 
them.  It  is  because  we  have  necessary,  un- 
changeable relations  to  universal  principles 
of  righteousness,  that  it  is  our  duty  to  shun 
wrong  and  do  right  in  each  specific  case. 
The  period  of  childhood,  therefore,  when 
one  is  discovering  these  necessary  relations 
and  making  himself  familiar  with  the  fixed 
points  in  the  environment  of  his  life,  is  the 
proper  time  for  the  unchanging  certainties 
of  the  moral  environment  also  to  be  learned, 
and  the  conscience  to  be  formed.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  conscience   is  formed   and 


160     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

fixed  for  life  in  most  persons  before  they  are 
twelve  years  old  ;  only  a  great  revolution 
can  change  it  after  that. 

How  shall  educational  evangelism  deal 
with  the  conscience-forming  period  of  child- 
hood ? 

It  is  evident  that  before  one  can  become  a 
Christian,  his  moral  nature  must  be  set 
right.  No  one  can  be  a  Christian  whose 
moral  perceptions  and  convictions  are  all 
awry.  St.  Paul  discovered  that  the  law  had 
been  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  men  to  Christ. 
The  divine  in  Christ  can  by  no  means  be 
appreciated  or  held  as  an  ideal,  the  meaning 
of  salvation  through  Christ  by  no  means 
understood,  until  the  everlasting  principles 
of  right  and  wrong  are  estimated  at  their 
true  valuation.  Does  not  this  require  us  to 
give  the  children  a  thorough  course  in  the 
Old  Testament  before  introducing  them  to 
the  New,  and  show  that  the  historical  ap- 
proach is  the  only  true  approach  to  Christ  ? 

Such  a  plan  has  been  suggested,  and  ably 
defended.  But  it  is  as  far  from  the  Chris- 
tian method  as  Sinai  is  from  Calvary.  For 
the  law  on  which  a  child's  conscience  is  to 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  161 

be  formed  is  not  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. We  do  not  undervalue  the  Old  Tes- 
tament by  insisting  that  it  must  be  kept  in 
its  place ;  and  that  place  is  the  region  of 
foreshado wings  in  ethics  as  in  religion.  The 
conscience  of  Christian  children  is  to  be 
shaped  not  by  Mosaic  but  by  Christian 
ethics.  Many  of  the  moral  precepts  of  the 
ancient  law  are  adopted  by  the  gospel  with- 
out change  of  wording,  and  should  be 
memorized  by  children  as  foundation  mate- 
rials for  moral  education.  But  the  ethical 
principle  of  the  Mosaic  system  cannot  com- 
pare with  the  ethical  principle  of  Christ  in 
power  to  grip  and  hold  and  rectify  the 
moral  nature.  The  law  of  Moses  rests  on 
the  divine  command — "  God  spake  all  these 
words."  The  ethical  principle  of  Jesus  is 
the  divine  Fatherhood — every  command  and 
exhortation  is  referred  to  the  wish  or  char- 
acter of  "  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven," 
and  the  reason  urged  for  obedience  is  "  that 
ye  may  be  sons  of  your  Father  who  is 
in  heaven."  The  Christian  conceptions 
of  right,  duty  and  law  are  based  upon 
the  fatherly  relation  of  God  to  men.     The 


162     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

law  which  is  now  to  lead  our  children  t(^ 
Christ  is  the  law  that  he  came  not  to  destroy 
but  to  fulfil,  namely,  not  the  law  given  in 
commandments  and  ordinances,  but  the 
eternal  law  of  the  fatherly  and  filial  relation 
of  God  and  man. 

In  developing  the  conscience  of  the  child 
by  this  law,  there  is  a  wide  range  of  mate- 
rial to  be  used  in  moral  instruction.  The 
most  effective  is  that  which  presents  con- 
crete cases  of  good  and  evil  deeds,  the  strug- 
gle of  righteousness  with  sin,  divine  sonship 
with  human  selfishness ;  stories  which  beai' 
their  meaning  home  to  the  soul  without  any 
hoBo  fahida  docet^  and  elicit  the  fitting  re- 
sponse of  approval  or  disapproval  from  the 
child's  moral  nature.  By  such  exercise  the 
moral  judgment  is  trained  to  act  keenly, 
promptly  and  decisively.  And  here  again 
one  set  of  stories  is  preeminent.  The  stories 
of  the  Id^al  Man,  the  perfect  Son,  are  peer- 
less for  the  culture  of  the  moral  nature. 
Among  them  there  is  one  that  transcends 
all  the  rest.  A  hundred  generations  have 
found  that  there  is  nothing  else  in  all  the 
world  that  touches  the  conscience  with  so 


A  GEADED  GOSPEL  163 

sure,  so  safe,  so  masterly  a  touch  as  the  story 
of  the  Cross.  The  story  of  the  cross  of 
Christ  is  the  supreme  power  on  earth  for  the 
rectification  of  conscience.  This,  more  than 
all  else,  corrects  errors  in  the  moral  view, 
brings  men  into  sympathy  with  the  mind  of 
God,  and  makes  them  see  the  true  nature  of 
moral  offenses  and  the  unspeakable  worth 
of  holiness.  In  the  presence  of  the  cross  of 
Christ  there  is  no  room  for  casuistry  or  con- 
fusion. The  child  cannot  understand  the 
atonement,  and  should  not  be  asked  to  try. 
But  children  can,  and  do,  very  early,  catch 
the  meaning  of  the  fact  that  Christ  died  for 
the  sin  of  the  world ;  children  can,  and  do, 
very  early,  bring  their  moral  natures  to  the 
cross  of  Christ,  and  there  begin  to  gain  the 
Christian  insight  into  the  great  realities  of 
right  and  wrong,  suffering  and  sacrifice,  sin 
and  salvation. 

Childhood  learns  the  world,  and  conforms 
to  it.  With  adolescence  comes  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  new  self  within  the  soul.  The 
necessary  relations  of  life,  having  become 
fairly   familiar,   retreat   to  form  the   back- 


164     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ground  of  consciousness  henceforth,  while  a 
new  interest  comes  to  the  fore.  The  child 
has  been  wonderingly  learning  to  know  the 
world  without ;  the  youth  is  now  amazed  at 
the  world  he  finds  within.  The  mysteries 
of  his  own  personality  now  challenge  him 
to  search  them  out.  He  finds  himself  occu- 
pied with  the  problems  of  a  free  person. 
He  ceases  to  ask,  concerning  things,  what 
is ;  begins  to  think  what  may  be,  what  he 
can  cause  to  be.  Toward  persons  he  begins 
to  act  as  a  person,  no  longer  imitatively,  but 
freely,  independently.  Personal  interests 
now  become  the  supreme  concern  of  his  life. 
In  early  adolescence,  this  main  concern  is 
largely  self-centered.  The  youth  is  learning 
to  know  himself  ;  his  spirit  is  distinctly  anti- 
social. But  with  self-knowledge  comes  a 
new  interest  in  what  life  and  truth  shall 
mean  to  him,  and  he  passes  into  the  second 
period  of  adolescence.  He  now  shows  that 
he  is  no  longer  a  child  by  declining  to  ap- 
propriate without  reserve  everything  offered 
to  his  mind ;  he  begins  to  sift  and  sort 
and  separate  ;  discriminates,  questions,  grows 
more  positive  of  his  beliefs  and  disbeliefs. 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  165 

His  mind  takes  up  the  higher  rational  proc- 
esses, and  insists  on  having  reasons,  evi- 
dence, proof.  He  declines  to  believe  on  the 
authority  of  others,  unless  he  has  full  confi- 
dence in  their  veracity  ;  declines  to  act  on 
the  direction  of  others,  unless  he  is  fully 
assured  of  their  wisdom. 

In  the  later  period  of  adolescence,  the 
youth  discovers  that  he  is  a  member  of 
society.  His  intellectual  unrest  is  accom- 
panied by  feelings,  emotions,  aspirations 
hitherto  unknown,  that  carry  him  out  of 
himself.  Conscience,  now  well-defined  in 
character,  broadens  its  reach,  and  the  moral 
imperative  bears  down  upon  the  soul  of 
youth  with  a  weight  never  felt  when  the 
child  obeyed  superiors  without  question  and 
without  responsibility.  As  a  child,  this 
youth  was  cared  for  ;  now  he  must  begin  to 
care  for  others.  Boys  and  girls  leave  school 
to  become  breadwinners.  "  Not  to  be  min- 
istered unto,  but  to  minister,"  takes  on  for 
them  the  dead-earnest  meaning  of  real  life. 
The  self-centered  life  of  the  child  is  being 
transformed  into  the  socialized  life  of  the 
man,  and  the  cJaims  of  the  social  order  are 


166     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

one  by  one  enforced  upon  him.  The  strong- 
est of  all  the  forces  that  work  to  this  end 
comes  into  play  when  the  differentiation  of 
the  sexes  is  complete  and  each  begins  to  feel 
the  attractions  and  realize  its  own  need  of 
the  other.  At  last  the  process  by  which 
youths  and  maidens  are  naturalized  in  the 
social  world — that  is,  the  world  of  persons — 
reaches  its  culmination,  when,  after  the 
years  of  storm  and  stress,  of  distrust  and 
bashfulness,  perhaps  of  flightiness  and  fri- 
volity, they  settle  down  as  heads  of  families, 
accepting  in  marriage  the  full  social  obliga- 
tions of  maturity. 

Thus  nature  has  ordained  that  the  normal 
business  of  youth  shall  be  to  find  one's  true 
place  in  the  world  of  free  persons.  Just  as 
physical  development  is  the  main  interest  at 
one  period,  so  personal  and  social  relations 
become  the  supreme  concern  at  another. 
What  is  the  vanity  of  youth,  but  just  an  ex- 
pression of  the  new  consciousness  of 

"This  main  miracle,  that  thou  art  thou, 
With  power  on  thine  own  act,  and  on  the  world  "  ? 

What  is  youth's  sentimentalism,  but  a  sense 


A  GEADEl)  GOSPEL  167 


of  the  value  of  personality  with  its  purposes 
and  passions,  exaggerated  because  it  has 
just  come  into  the  field  of  vision  and  fills  it 
completely  ? 

The  long  and  passionate  struggle  of  a 
youth's  restless  years  is  to  get  a  correct  ad- 
justment of  personal  and  social  relations 
with  the  persons  who  make  up  the  human 
world  about  him,  and  the  Supreme  Person 
above.  On  correct  adjustment  here,  the 
blessedness  or  the  perdition  of  life  depends ; 
the  burden  of  responsibility  cannot  be 
shifted  ;  each  must  make  his  own  adjust- 
ment, with  fatal  results  for  weal  or  woe ; 
and  that  is  why  the  hopes  of  youth  are  such 
bounding  hopes,  the  sorrows  of  youth  such 
poignant  sorrows. 

Youth,  then,  is  the  normal  time  when  one 
should  "experience  religion."  Morality  is 
an  interpretation  of  the  necessary  relations 
of  the  soul ;  the  moral  idea  is  that  of  happy 
conformity  to  that  which  is  essentially  so. 
But  religion  is  characteristically  personal,  is 
an  interpretation  of  personal  relations ;  the 
religious  idea,  as  distinguished  from  the 
moral,  is  that  of  harmony  between  free  per- 


168     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

sons,  right  personal  relations  between  man 
and  God.  Since  relations  of  this  kind  form 
the  foreground  of  the  thought  of  youth,  the 
soul  is  clearly  ready  for  the  distinctively  re- 
ligious appeal. 

The  Christ  for  youth  is  the  Christ  who 
enters  into  free  relations  with  men  ;  who 
walked  and  ate  and  talked  with  men,  re- 
ceived their  homage  and  relieved  their  pain, 
instructed  their  minds  and  forgave  their 
sins ;  who  was  loved  by  John,  denied  by 
Peter,  betrayed  by  Judas,  condemned  by 
Pilate,  and  worshiped  by  Mary ;  who  bids 
men  enter  into  life  by  the  narrow  gate,  deny 
self,  take  up  the  cross,  leave  all  and  follow 
him.  The  aggravated  self-consciousness  of 
youth  implies  a  potential  corresponding  con- 
sciousness of  the  worth  of  other  selves  ;  the 
youth  knows  how  to  do  and  suffer  for  an- 
other. He  is  ready  for  the  altruistic  teach- 
ing of  the  gospel ;  losing  life  that  it  may  be 
saved  now  comes  to  have  a  real,  clear  mean- 
ing for  him.  In  all  the  world  of  persons  to 
whom  life  may  be  devoted,  Christ  appears 
as  supreme,  the  One  above  all  others  to  be 
believed  in,  trusted,  loved  and  served  ;  the 


A  GRADED  GOSPEL  169 

one  entirely  worthy  Master  of  the  soul,  to 
die  for  whom  is  gain. 

Of  the  presentation  of  Christ  to  the  souls 
that  are  mature,  it  need  only  be  said  here, 
that  these  souls  have  reached  the  time  for 
life's  work,  and  the  Christ  that  appeals  to 
them  is  Christ  the  Worker.  The  religion  of 
service  is  the  religion  for  manhood.  Con- 
science has  been  developed,  personal  relations 
largely  settled,  personal  habits  made  stable, 
life's  calling  found,  one's  home  fixed ;  now 
there  is  work  to  do !  The  soul  of  the  man 
who  does  his  honest  share  of  the  work  of  the 
world  needs  often  to  see  Jesus  working  his 
divine  work,  offering  to  God  his  faithful 
service,  blessing  the  world  by  his  toil  and 
pain  and  sacrifice.  The  heroic  in  Christ 
calls  forth  the  manly  in  men,  and  is  educa- 
tive until  life's  work  is  done. 

Since  the  Church,  willingly  or  not,  is  defi- 
nitely committed  to  the  methods  of  educa- 
tional evangelism  as  the  chief  means  of 
winning  men  to  God,  its  greatest  need  is 
skill,  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  handling 


170     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

a  graded  gospel.  Those  who  are  skilled  to 
present  Christ  adequately  and  appropriately 
to  human  souls  of  every  grade — or  of  one 
particular  grade — are  in  demand.  Great 
progress  has  been  made  in  recent  years,  but 
yet  how  many  Sunday-school  teachers  are 
there  who  really  understand  the  character- 
istic differences  between  infancy,  childhood 
and  youth,  and  know  how  to  change  the 
appeal  of  their  teaching  at  just  the  right 
stage  of  growth  ?  How  many,  for  example, 
know  how  to  teach  the  Ten  Commandments 
to  children  as  an  expression  of  the  highest 
right,  the  will  of  a  Father  to  be  implicitly 
obeyed  ;  and  then  how  to  set  those  same 
words  before  youths  as  an  expression  of  the 
Highest  Person's  mind,  the  terms  of  right 
relations  and  happy  fellowship  with  him  ? 
It  is  because  of  failure  to  understand  the 
grading  of  the  gospel  that  the  appeal  to  the 
higher  personal  consciousness  is  so  often  of- 
fered to  little  children  who  cannot  possibly 
— for  physiological  as  well  as  psychological 
reasons — comprehend  it;  and  it  thus  becomes 
wretched  cant  and  driveling  sentiment  on 
the  lips  of  the  teacher  ;  and  on  those  of  the 


A  GEADED  GOSPEL  171 

children,  if  they  take  it  up,  soul-deadening 
hypocrisy.  How  often  boys  at  the  period 
of  adolescence  grow  weary  of  the  Sunday- 
school  because  their  teacher  does  not  know 
any  better  than  to  continue  with  them  the 
moral  appeal  of  childhood  !  It  was  the  best 
thing  possible  for  them  two  years  ago,  but 
is  now  become  a  barren  platitude,  mere 
goody-goodiness,  because  their  souls  are 
ready  for  a  deeper,  personal  religion. 

In  that  reorganization  of  the  evangelistic 
methods  of  the  church  which  is  so  urgently  de- 
manded, the  very  first  step  is  to  learn  the  dis- 
tinctive appeals  of  the  Divine  Person  which 
are  effective  at  the  different  stages  of  the 
soul's  development.  When  they  have  been 
mastered,  graded  instruction  in  the  contents 
of  the  Bible  and  the  doctrines  of  the  faith 
may  well  receive  attention.  But  no  religious 
instruction  will  possess  permanent  attraction 
and  interest  for  human  souls  if  it  fails  to  hold 
before  them  all  the  time  the  fundamental 
religious  truth,  the  divine  in  the  human. 
Stories  may  interest  little  children  for  a  few 
years — any  kind  of  stories  ;  picnics  may 
keep  the  boys  in  school  a  little  longer — any 


172     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

kind  of  picnics.  But  the  men  of  our  day 
are  in  more  serious  business  than  being  en- 
tertained with  stories  and  picnics ;  and 
they  will  surely  not  be  found  in  the  church 
or  Sunday-school  that  fails  to  supply  the 
hunger  of  their  souls  for  the  divine  fellow- 
ship by  making  the  one  supreme  religious 
idea  of  the  union  of  the  earthly  with  the 
celestial — the  divine  life  in  man,  God  in  the 
world,  the  Son  of  God  incarnate — central  in 
all  its  teaching. 


CHAPTER  YIII 
The  School  of  Worship 

If  there  is  one  thing  that  the  churches  of 
America  are  trying  with  all  their  human 
might  to  do,  it  is  to  enroll  all  their  children 
and  young  people  in  Sunday-schools,  Young 
People's  Societies,  or  kindred  organizations, 
and  keep  them  there  until  they  are  ready  to 
unite  with  the  church. 

They  cannot  do  it.  They  never  will  be 
able  to  do  it.  And  there  is  a  good  reason 
why. 

The  reason  is  not  the  inefficiency  of  the 
Sunday-schools.  We  are  not  about  to 
launch  out  in  a  criticism  of  them.  They 
are  not  perfect,  but  they  are  the  greatest 
adjunct  of  the  church  in  this  age.  The 
faith  that  men  show  in  the  Sunday-school 
as  the  leading  institution  in  the  American 
S3^stem  of  religious  education,  and  their 
determination  to  improve  it,  are  among  the 
173 


174     EDUCATIONAL  EYAXGELISM 

most  encouraging  features  of  the  present 
situation.  We  are  not  here  concerned,  how- 
ever, to  discuss  the  Sunday-school  or  an}- 
other  form  of  organized  religious  work,  but 
only  to  comment  on  the  behavior  of  youth 
toward  the  institutions  of  religion,  and  to 
inquire  what  that  behavior  means. 

Let  us  put  together  two  of  the  best 
known  facts  in  this  field.  The  first  is  the 
disposition  of  the  larger  boys — and  girls, 
too,  in  a  slightly  less  degree — to  leave  the 
Sunday-school  during  adolescence.  The 
Sunday-school  gets  and  interests  the  chil- 
dren. In  most  communities,  there  is  little 
occasion  to  raise  the  question  how  to  get 
the  children  into  the  Sunday-school.  They 
are  already  there — some  of  them  in  two  or 
three  schools.  We  hear  of  multitudes  who 
do  not  attend  church  ;  but  their  children  do 
attend  our  Sunday-schools.  But  beyond  the 
age  of  childhood  we  cannot  keep  them. 
About  the  age  of  twelve  they  begin  to  get 
restless,  and  in  a  few  months  or  3^ears  the 
most  of  them  are  gone,  ^or  have  we  de- 
vised any  effectual  means  of  inducing  them 
to   stay.     There  are   exceptional   teachers, 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       175 

who  by  exceptional  means  hold  exceptional 
classes  together.  There  are  other  classes 
that  simply  cannot  be  held.  We  have  our 
Junior  Societies  and  Leagues ;  it  is  easy 
enough  to  attract  large  numbers  of  children 
to  them ;  but  they  are  conspicuously  unsuc- 
cessful in  graduating  boys  of  fourteen  to 
sixteen  years  into  the  senior  societies.  We 
organize  Boys'  Brigades,  Sunday-school 
baseball  teams,  and  so  on ;  and  the  very 
boys  for  whom  we  plan  them  ridicule  the 
whole  thing.  It  is  probable  that,  in  general, 
the  great  majority  of  the  children  under 
fourteen  are  in  some  Sunday-school  or 
children's  religious  society,  while  a  clear 
majority  of  youths  of  both  sexes  from  four- 
teen to  twenty-one  are  not  in  any  Sunday- 
school  or  religious  society.  A  certain  pro- 
portion remain ;  but  with  regard  to  the 
majority,  it  is  not  difficult,  it  is  impossible, 
to  keep  them  in  Sunday-school,  Young 
People's  Society,  or  any  kindred  organiza- 
tion. 

There  is  one  fact;  now  consider  the 
other.  It  has  long  been  customary  in 
revival    meetings  to   warn   people  against 


176     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

delay  by  an  exhibition  of  the  comparative 
numbers  who  begin  the  religious  life  at 
different  ages.  The  evangelist  asks  those 
converted  before  they  were  twenty  to  rise 
and  three-fourths  of  the  congregation  rise ; 
he  asks  those  converted  after  forty  to  rise, 
and  there  are  only  a  handful.  The  argu- 
ment is  unanswerable.  In  more  recent 
years,  the  age  of  conversion  has  been  made 
a  matter  of  scientific  study,  and  all  are  now 
familiar  with  the  statistics  collected  by 
President  G.  Stanley  Hall  and  his  followers, 
showing  that  nearly  all  of  those  who  ever 
become  members  of  the  church  are  con- 
verted and  join  the  church  between  the 
ages  of  twelve  and  twenty.  This  is  the 
second  fact.  Put  the  two  together ;  the 
result  is  amazingly  worth  our  attention ; 
the  age  at  which  the  Sunday-school  loses 
most  is  the  age  at  which  the  church  gains 
most.  The  time  of  exodus  from  the  Sun- 
day-school is  the  time  of  ingathering  for 
the  church.  The  period  of  alienation  and 
estrangement,  when  the  big  boys  and  girls 
forsake  the  Sunday-school  and  similar  or- 
ganizations   is   the    very    time   when   they 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       177 


flock  to  join  the  church.    What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  this  ? 

Some  would  dismiss  the  matter  by  saying 
that  it  simply  means  the  separation  of  the 
religiously  inclined  from  those  who  are  not 
so.  Those  who  care  nothing  for  religion 
leave  the  Sunday-school  and  other  religious 
services,  while  those  who  remain  in  the 
Sunday-school  and  Endeavor  Society  be- 
come members  of  the  church.  There  is 
much  truth  in  this  view ;  but  not  enough 
truth  to  explain  our  facts.  For  what  pro- 
portion of  the  members  of  the  church  are  in 
the  Sunday-school?  Suppose  we  say  one- 
third,  which  is  surely  a  generous  estimate. 
The  fact  then  remains  that  two-thirds  of 
the  confessedly  religious  people,  those  who 
become  members  of  the  church,  do  not 
keep  up  their  connection  with  the  Sunday- 
school. 

The  true  explanation  lies  deeper.  In  our 
study  of  that  dramatic  action  through 
which  a  soul  passes  on  its  way  from  child- 
hood to  maturity  we  have  found  a  con- 
stitutional reason  for  these  facts. 

We  have  seen  that  youth  is  the  time  when 


178     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

the  soul  finds  itself,  and  that  the  essential 
features  of  the  process  of  self -discover}^  are 
alienation  and  return.  The  youth  realizes 
the  meaning  of  his  individual  personality  by 
setting  himself  over  against  his  environ- 
ment; questioning,  experimenting,  investi- 
gating, in  order  that  his  convictions  may 
rest  upon  his  own  experience  and  his  life 
become  self -governed.  With  some  tempera- 
ments, as  we  have  seen,  this  process  involves 
a  radical  and  sweeping  change,  a  sometimes 
violent  throwing  off  of  home  restraints  and 
influences,  a  strange  turning  against  things 
loved  in  childhood,  an  unsettling  of  the 
whole  moral  and  spiritual  life.  With  any 
temperament,  there  is  a  tendency  for  the 
boy  to  become  self-conscious,  bashful,  secre- 
tive ;  he  dreads  to  be  questioned  or  pressed 
closely  ;  will  not  speak,  if  he  can  help  it,  of 
his  most  intimate  thoughts ;  refuses  to  ex- 
hibit his  heart  to  any  one. 

He  ceases  to  go  to  Sunday-school  because 
his  nature  shrinks  from  the  close  personal 
touch  with  the  truth  and  the  teacher  in  the 
presence  of  others  which  a  small  Sunday- 
school   class   involves.      He    will   avoid  his 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       179 


pastor,  father,  mother,  or  any  one  else 
likely  to  speak  to  him  of  religious  things, 
because  his  whole  soul  resents  interference 
with  its  God-given  privilege  of  discovering 
life  for  itself.  The  only  one  who  can  win 
his  confidence,  is  the  one  who  understands 
him  without  saying  so,  and  forbears  to  in- 
trude upon  his  private  thoughts.  He  de- 
clines to  take  part  in  a  prayer-meeting,  be- 
cause he  is  not  ready  to  speak  of  his  own 
new  spiritual  experiences;  he  really  does 
not  know  what  to  say,  for  he  is  so  unsettled. 
And  those  who  say  that  he  ought  not  to  be  so 
unsettled,  simply  do  not  understand  youth, 
and  are  impertinent  meddlers  with  God's 
and  Nature's  ways. 

But  none  the  less,  "  the  thoughts  of  youth 
are  long,  long  thoughts."  The  adolescent 
mind  is  keenly  sensitive  to  spiritual  truth. 
No  one  is  more  deeply,  passionately  inter- 
ested in  the  good,  the  right,  the  true  and 
the  beautiful.  The  boy's  mind  is  warm  and 
fertile  soil,  all  ready  for  the  good  seed  and 
thirsting  for  the  water  of  life  to  make  it 
grow.  Life  and  what  to  do  with  it,  love 
and  its  meaning,  self-sacrifice  and  the  splen- 


180     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

dor  of  it,  are  the  familiar  thoughts  of  the 
adolescent  boy.  He  demands  reality  and 
not  make-believe,  substance  and  not  show, 
the  perfect  and  not  the  defective,  the  whole 
and  not  a  part.  That  is  why  you  cannot 
save  him  with  a  fragment  of  the  gospel 
or  satisfy  him  with  a  fraction  of  the  church 
life.  That  is  why  this  boy  who  has  grown 
tired  of  the  Sunday-school  despises  the  pas- 
tor or  parent  who  hopes  to  make  him  re- 
ligious with  a  Boys'  Brigade  or  a  ball-team. 
That  is  why  all  methods  that  appeal  to  any- 
thing except  the  highest  in  him  are  doomed 
to  fail.  Unwilling  to  express  himself  about 
religious  matters  he  undeniably  is ;  irre- 
ligious he  emphatically  is  not. 

What  he  needs  is  a  place  where,  all  un- 
questioned and  unobserved,  he  may  lift  up 
his  heart  to  God  and  give  wings  to  his  as- 
pirations ;  where,  without  being  hastened 
or  pressed,  yet  with  wise  help  and  guidance, 
he  may  think  out  his  long  thoughts  until 
they  settle  his  character  for  life.  We  are 
often  in  too  much  haste  to  secure  a  confes- 
sion, and  the  allegiance  of  the  youth  to  an 
institution  of  religion  ;  God's  way  is  to  build 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       181 

character,  and  to  trust  a  character  built  on 
Christ  to  make  its  own  confession  before  the 
world. 

That  place  which  the  boy  needs,  God  has 
provided  for  him.  It  is  the  service  of  wor- 
ship where  the  Word  is  preached.  When 
all  other  expedients  have  done  their  utmost, 
they  but  make  it  increasingly  clear  that  the 
supreme  institution  for  religious  education 
is  that  School  of  Worship,  which  in  some 
form  or  other  has  existed  ever  since  the  first 
rude  altar  of  stones  was  built,  and  in  which 
God,  not  man,  presides  over  the  religious 
education  of  his  children. 

Observe  how  the  service  of  this  place  suits 
the  soul  of  youth  as  though  designed  ex- 
pressly to  meet  its  needs. 

The  spiritual  unrest  and  turmoil,  the 
undefined  feelings  and  vague  longings  for 
a  life  larger  and  more  beautiful  than  yet 
realized,  the  aspirations  of  the  soul,  its 
hopes  and  fears  and  passions,  all  so  keen, 
so  fresh,  so  wondrous,  so  little  understood 
by  the  new-born  adolescent,  prepare  him 
to  see  in  the  service  of  worship,  with  its 
ritual  and  symbol  and  sacrament,  a  world 


182     EDUCATIONAL  EVAJN'GELISM 

of  rich  meaning  and  deep  satisfaction  for 
his  uneasy  spirit.  Let  the  emotions  that 
make  youth  restless  and  fickle  and  senti- 
mental be  understood,  and  it  will  be  clear 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  wide  world  so 
fitted  to  satisfy  and  regulate  them  as  a 
church  service  of  worship.  Again,  the  new 
independence  in  thinking,  the  impulse  of  the 
adolescent  mind  to  work  vigorously  along 
the  higher  reaches  of  rational  exercise,  just 
fit  him  to  follow  and  appreciate  the  contin- 
uous discourse  of  sermons.  Now,  if  ever, 
the  mind  develops  the  power  to  think  con- 
nectedly, and  learns  to  take  delight  in  dis- 
cursive thought.  And  again,  the  adolescent 
impulse  to  social  life,  the  passion  to  be  like 
and  with  mature  persons,  which  takes  offense 
at  the  suggestion  that  a  youth's  place  is  with 
the  children  or  in  some  corner  by  himself,  is 
satisfied  when  the  boy  takes  his  place  among 
grown-up  worshipers  in  the  house  of  God ; 
while  the  youthful  shyness  that  seeks  con- 
cealment feels  no  violence  done  to  it  when 
the  youthful  worshiper  worships  unnoticed 
by  men  as  one  of  a  congregation.  Thus  the 
service  of  the  church  answers  the  needs  and 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       183 


processes  of  the  adolescent  soul  as  deep  call- 
eth  unto  deep ;  and  in  these  youthful  years, 
or  never,  will  he  form  the  habit  of  regular 
and  appreciative  attendance  on  worship  and 
sermons.  If,  as  a  child,  he  has  been  present 
at  these  services,  he  has  neither  appreciated 
the  liturgy  nor  understood  the  sermons  ;  in 
a  few  years,  as  a  man,  he  will  have  no  use 
for  either  if  they  fail  in  these  sensitive  ado- 
lescent years  to  find  and  hold  him. 

What,  then,  is  a  truly  educational  evangel- 
ism  to  do  for  the  youth?  Does  not  the 
finger  of  God,  revealed  in  the  nature  that 
he  has  implanted  in  the  soul  of  youth,  give 
direction  that  when  this  time  of  alienation 
comes,  our  eifort  should  be  to  make  these 
young  people  at  home  in  the  services  of  the 
church,  rather  than  to  keep  them  in  the 
children's  place  or  put  them  ofi'  in  an  or- 
ganization by  themselves  ?  Is  not  our  fail- 
ure with  them  largely  due  to  our  misunder- 
standing of  the  real  needs  of  their  spiritual 
natures?  With  certain  temperaments,  in- 
cluding a  large  proportion  of  the  boys,  the 
ordinary  methods  of  Sunday-school  and 
Young   People's   Society  and   like   associa- 


184     EDUCATIOXAL  EYAXGELISM 

tions  are  utterly  opposed  to  the  processes  of 
adolescent  growth.  To  hold  such  youths  in 
the  Sunday-school  may  be  to  do  violence 
to  their  spiritual  natures, — to  work,  not 
with,  but  against,  God  in  their  souls.  And 
let  it  be  remembered  that  every  method  or 
agency  used  in  religious  work  must  give 
account  to  God  not  only  for  the  souls  whom 
it  wins  and  saves,  but  also  for  all  whom  it 
alienates  and  destroys.  That  some  methods 
widely  used  do  needlessly  and  cruelly  drive 
men  from  the  church  and  harden  them 
against  religion,  is  a  fact  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  doubt. 

Be  it  distinctly  understood  that  these 
words  are  not  written  in  criticism  of  Sun- 
day-schools, Young  People's  Societies,  boys' 
clubs,  and  like  agencies,  but  in  rebuke  of 
the  stupidity  that  imagines  that  these  agen- 
cies will  accomplish  the  all-important  things. 
Nearly  all  the  young  people  who  join  the 
church  come  from  the  Sunday-school  or 
Young  People's  Society  ;  that  is  an  unques- 
tioned fact,  and  is  as  it  should  be ;  let  it 
stand.  But  it  is  passing  strange  how  any, 
even   the  well-known  wayfaring  man,  can 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP        185 

miss  the  other  fact,  that  all  these  agencies 
have  few,  if  any,  converts  to  report  where 
adolescent  boys  and  girls  do  not  attend 
services  of  worship  and  preaching.  Give 
all  due  credit  to  every  agency  that  helps, 
but  let  not  the  helper  claim  to  be  the  master 
workman.  The  services  of  worship  repre- 
sent the  most  efficient  institution  for  the 
development  of  the  religious  nature,  the 
education  of  human  souls  for  God,  that  the 
Creator  has  been  able  to  bring  forth  upon 
this  earth  after  dealing  with  hundreds  of 
generations ;  and  what  a  comment  it  is  on 
human  folly,  that  when  men  set  themselves 
to  devise  a  system  of  religious  education 
they  practically  ignore  this  institution  in  all 
their  discussions ! 

That  church,  we  hold,  is  making  a  fatal 
blunder  which  places  its  chief  dependence 
for  the  winning  of  the  youth  on  any  special 
means  outside  its  own  services.  Supplement 
those  services  as  you  will ;  but  once  give  a 
boy  to  understand  that  he  is  such  a  peculiar 
creature  that  a  special  place  apart  from  the 
men  and  women  has  to  be  provided  for  him  ; 
give  him  the  impression  that  you  have  no 


186     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

hope  of  making  a  Christian  man  of  him  by 
the  regular  God-appointed  means,  and  you 
have  done  him  the  last  irreparable  injury 
for  which  no  effort  or  sacrifice  on  your  part 
can  atone.  And  is  not  this  precisely  the 
impression  made  by  some  of  our  present 
methods  ?  We  hustle  hither  and  thither, 
and  busy  ourselves  with  everything  else  ex- 
cept showing  the  boys  their  place  in  the 
church  itself.  We  send  them  to  Bible 
classes,  urge  them  to  join  this  club  or  that 
association,  go  about  all  sorts  of  circui- 
tous ways  to  catch  by  guile  those  who, 
above  all  things,  love  directness  and  are 
glad  to  be  won  by  sincerity.  But,  in  most 
churches,  who  thinks  of  interpreting  the 
service  of  worship  to  the  youth,  showing 
them  how  to  enter  into  it,  how  to  make 
public  praise  and  common  prayer  the  wings 
of  their  own  spirits  to  lift  them  up  to  God, 
how  to  find  in  anthem  and  hymn  and  psalm 
and  Scripture  and  sermon  the  bread  and  the 
water  of  life  ?  Who  does  anything  to  make 
them  feel  that  the  service  is  for  them  ?  So 
long  as  we,  by  conduct  and  method  and 
organization,  often,  too,  by  outright  asser- 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       187 

tion,  give  the  boys  to  understand  that  we 
expect  them  to  get  their  religious  culture 
and  inspiration  from  some  other  source,  how 
in  the  name  of  reason  can  we  expect  to  find 
the  men  in  the  church  ? 

Parents  and  pastors  should  leave  off  their 
busy  scheming  and  faithless  worrying  about 
the  boys,  and  take  time  to  ponder  these 
facts  in  their  hearts  :— That  Jewish  law  and 
custom  required  parents  to  take  their  twelve- 
year-old  boys,  not  to  some  place  prepared 
for  the  boys  alone,  but  to  the  great  temple 
at  Jerusalem,  the  center  of  the  religious  life 
of  the  whole  people ;  that  Jesus,  going  thus 
to  the  temple  at  twelve  years  of  age,  found, 
to  his  unspeakable  delight,  that  it  was  his 
natural  and  fitting  place,  so  that  he  won- 
dered that  his  parents  should  look  for  him 
anywhere  else;  that  we,  like  the  learned 
doctors  there,  would  be  amazed  at  the  un- 
derstanding and  answ^ers  of  our  twelve-year- 
old  boys,  did  we  but  take  pains  to  discover 
their  real  thoughts  of  religious  truth ;  and 
that  the  place  of  the  big  boy,  with  his  en- 
larging life  and  his  passionately  aspiring 
soul,  is  not  necessarily  in  the  Sunday-school 


188     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

or  the  boys'  club,  which  may  indeed  do 
something  for  him,  but  is  necessarily  in  his 
Fatlier's  house,  wliich  will  do  all  for  him. 

We  can  well  afford  to  let  everything  else 
wait  until  pastors  and  people  have  attended 
to  this  matter  of  securing  the  attendance  of 
the  young  people  of  from  twelve  to  twenty 
at  the  services  of  worship  where  the  gospel 
is  preached,  and  have  provided  there  those 
varied,  rich  and  inspiring  elements  of  wor- 
ship, and  that  simple,  manful,  luminous, 
convincing  testimony  to  the  truth  which 
the  adolescent  soul  demands.  For  what- 
ever other  methods  may  be  employed,  our 
hope  of  sound,  intelligent  conversions,  of 
lives  devoted  to  the  Master  and  characters 
built  on  him,  centers  there. 

It  might  seem  to  some  that  the  confirma- 
tion system  of  the  historic  churches  pre- 
cisely meets  the  situation  here  developed; 
for  it  is  a  great,  regular,  established,  insti- 
tutional effort  to  bring  the  adolescent  chil- 
dren into  the  church  itself.  It  has  not  only 
centuries  of  Christian  practice  to  commend 
it,  but  the  practice  of  Jews  and  pagans  as 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       189 

well.  The  instinct  of  humanity  has  given 
its  voice  in  favor  of  some  recognized  method 
of  initiating  the  adolescent  youth  into  the 
sacred  rites  of  his  people.  Some  such  es- 
tablished practice  is  necessary  to  any  com- 
plete system  of  educational  evangelism. 
The  churches  that  practice  confirmation  are 
not  disposed  to  abandon  it;  and  under 
various  names  and  forms,  such  as  catechet- 
ical classes,  pastor's  classes,  and  the  like, 
which  offer  special  instruction  for  those 
about  to  join  the  church,  its  essential 
features  are  rapidly  coming  back  into  the 
churches  where  it  has  been  supplanted  by 
the  methods  of  the  revival  system. 

Yet  confirmation,  as  commonly  practised, 
is  by  no  means  an  ideal  method  in  religious 
education.  The  old  objection  is  still  valid 
that  it  tends  to  formality,  emphasizes  the 
intellectual  rather  than  the  vital,  and  makes 
too  little  of  the  personal  decision  to  live 
the  Christian  life.  But  a  far  more  serious 
difficulty  is  that  children  are  usually  con- 
firmed too  soon.  It  is  a  dangerously  easy 
thing  to  take  children  in  whom  the  new  life 
of    adolescence   is   not   fully  awake,  teach 


190     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

them  a  catechism,  persuade  them  that  they 
ought  to  become  communicants,  and  receive 
them  into  the  church.  What  is  accom- 
plished by  this  ?  The  one  thing  made  per- 
fectly certain  is,  that  the  church  itself,  its 
services  and  its  communion,  have  been 
placed  among  the  things  from  which  the 
adolescent  youth  will  soon  feel  himself 
estranged.  The  fact  that  they  are  com- 
municants doubtless  helps  to  hold  some  few 
steady  through  the  storms  of  youth ;  but 
even  these  few  are  compelled  to  raise  the 
question  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  their 
church-membership,  and  very  large  num- 
bers simply  withdraw  from  active  participa- 
tion in  the  church  life,  because  they  now 
realize  that  they  became  communicants 
without  understanding  what  it  meant. 
Thus  early  confirmation  defeats  its  own  ob- 
ject. If  the  church  is  to  have  the  personal 
loyalty  of  its  members — and  why  should 
they  be  members  on  any  other  terms  ? — it  is 
far  more  consonant  with  the  laws  of  the 
souPs  development  that  church-membership 
and  communion  should,  as  a  rule,  be  among 
the  things  on   the  farther  side  of   youth's 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       191 

estrangement,  and  be  regarded,  like  citizen- 
ship, marriage,  and  business  or  professional 
life,  as  elements  in  the  new,  higher  life  that 
opens  up  to  a  young  man  when  the  disturb- 
ances of  early  adolescence  are  past. 

To  speak  the  truth,  there  is  a  bane  of 
brevity  that  rests  on  most  of  our  plans  for 
bringing  young  people  into  the  church. 
They  lack  the  ordered  continuity  of  purpose 
and  effort  essential  to  the  promotion  of  vital 
religious  advancement.  There  is  no  short 
cut  from  childish  to  mature  faith.  Nature 
takes  ten  years  to  do  her  special  work  in  the 
soul  of  the  youth  ;  can  the  church  expect  to 
do  hers  in  ten  days  or  ten  weeks  ?  To  re- 
ceive children  into  the  communion  of  the 
church  just  at  the  dawn  of  that  period 
when  their  anti-social  instincts  awake,  and 
then  to  think*  that  they  are  safe,  and  ignore 
their  special  needs  during  the  disturbances 
that  are  sure  to  follow,  is  only  botching  the 
work.  And  we  have  seen  that  it  is  a  sore 
delusion  to  imagine  that  the  situation  can 
be  adequately  met  by  the  formation  of 
Young  People's  Societies,  or  any  expedient 
of  that  kindr     A  true  educational  method 


192     EDUCATIONAL  EVA:N(iELilSM 

must  walk  patiently  by  the  side  of  youth 
through  all  the  steps  of  its  progress,  recog- 
nizing its  right  to  be  anti-social — against  all 
societies — at  one  time,  welcoming  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  gang  spirit  as  a  sign  of  a 
new  social  impulse,  confident  that  the 
higher  social  instincts  will  assert  their  power 
later  on,  sure  that  the  first  thing  is  to  keep 
the  youth's  place  in  his  Father's  house  al- 
ways ready  for  his  return,  careful  above  all 
things  that  he  shall  not  be  made  to  feel  that 
he  is  utterly  lost  to  religion  and  the  church 
because  he  rebels  against  conventional  forms 
and  insists  on  going  his  own  way  for  a  time. 
If  it  is  true,  as  is  asserted,  that  an  in- 
creasing proportion  of  young  men  do  not 
attend  or  support  the  church,  may  not  one 
reason  be  the  failure  of  the  church  to  min- 
ister understandingly  and  fittingly  to  them 
in  youth  ?  This  is  indeed  a  large  subject, 
not  to  be  disposed  of  in  a  few  sentences. 
The  following  suggestions  are  not  made  in 
the  spirit  of  one  who  would  lightly  heal  the 
hurt  of  Israel,  but  as  matters  that  must  be 
duly  considered  if  the  situation  is  to  be 
fairly  met. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WORSHIP       193 

1.  We  must  deal  with  youth  in  vital,  not 
formal,  ways.  They  are  to  be  regarded,  not 
as  factors  in  the  parish  organization,  but  as 
actors  in  its  life.  The  very  first  thing  re- 
quired is  that  the  church  itself  shall  take 
cognizance  of  its  youth  ;  as  a  worshiping 
body,  it  must  be  aware  of  them,  sensitive  to 
their  presence,  responsive  to  their  needs. 
Youth  should  be  in  our  congregations  as  in 
our  homes ;  their  place  is  not  the  nursery, 
but  the  family  living-room.  There  is  no 
call  to  order  either  the  church  or  the  home 
life  entirely  to  suit  them,  for  they  are  only 
a  part  of  the  family,  but  it  is  a  righteous 
demand  that  they  shall  not  be  ignored. 

2.  It  would  be  natural  to  say,  in  the 
next  place,  that  the  church  services  should 
be  adapted  to  youth ;  but  this  has  been 
already  done.  No  violent  reconstruction  of 
our  methods  of  worship,  no  radical  change 
in  the  style  of  preaching,  is  required  by  the 
interests  of  youth  ;  all  that  is  necessary  is 
to  be  true  to  the  ideals  now  cherished.  The 
nearer  we  come  to  the  ideal  church  service, 
the  nearer  we  come  to  what  youth  wants. 
Dull    sermons,    tedious    prayers,    "  balloon- 


194     EDUCATIOXAL  EVAKGELISM 

ing "  by  the  choir,  are  no  more  profitable 
for  age  than  for  youth.  But  the  perennial 
freshness  of  the  gospel  imparts  a  youthful 
spirit  to  the  very  nature  of  Christian  wor- 
ship. We  all  go  to  church  to  have  renewed 
in  us  the  hopefulness  and  confidence,  the 
courage  and  assurance,  the  fresh  enthusiasm 
and  glad  anticipations,  that  are  youth's  own 
property.  Surely  if  this  atmosphere  is  in 
the  service,  youth  will  feel  at  home  there. 
And  when  it  comes  to  the  teaching,  the 
doctrine,  the  sermon,  there  is  hardly  a 
greater  homiletic  mistake  than  to  suppose 
that  the  best  thought  of  a  mature  mind 
presented  in  the  most  effective  way  to  reach 
earnest  men  is  not  the  proper  food  for  the 
youth.  Children's  sermons  may  be  very  well 
for  children  now  and  then,  but  they  are  an 
abomination  to  boys  in  long  trousers  ;  what 
they  need  is  the  preacher's  best  thought, 
put  in  his  most  businesslike  way.  If  a 
sermon  is  prepared  for  those  who  are  fond 
of  some  special  type  of  thought  or  method 
of  discourse,  it  is  likely  to  miss  the  youth  ; 
but  not  if  it  is  a  vital  utterance  of  substan- 
tial   truth    addressed   to   serious   men   and 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       195 


women.    That  is  all  youth  asks,  for  it  is  what 
youth  loves. 

3.  Perhaps  the  greatest  need  of  all  at 
present  is  a  concerted  and  continuous  effort 
on  the  part  of  pastors,  parents,  pewholders, 
Sunday-school  officers  and  teachers,  and  all 
concerned,  to  secure  the  attendance  of  the 
youth  at  the  church  services.  Many  Chris- 
tian people  thoughtlessly  allow  their  chil- 
dren to  grow  up  without  forming  the  habit 
of  attending  church;  the  Sunday-school  or 
children's  society  is  considered  enough  for 
them,  until  suddenly  it  appears  that  they 
do  not  want  to  go  to  any  religious  service. 
In  many,  if  not  most,  Sunday-schools  there 
are  children  whose  parents  do  not  attend 
church,  so  that  they  are  not  likely  of  them- 
selves to  form  the  church-going  habit.  In 
some  places  the  free-seat  crusade  has  wrought 
havoc  with  the  idea  that  a  whole  family 
should  sit  together  in  their  own  pew,  and 
the  younger  members  have  felt  free  to  sit 
where  and  come  when  they  pleased.  So 
it  has  come  to  pass  that  there  exists  in 
almost  every  parish  a  considerable  number 
of  boys  and  girls  between  twelve  and  twenty 


196     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

years  of  age  who  have  never  learned  to  at- 
tend the  church  services  or  enter  into  its 
worship,  although  in  a  very  real  sense  they 
belong  to  that  parish.  The  church  itself 
must  go  after  these  young  people ;  under 
no  circumstances  are  they  to  be  committed 
to  the  care  of  any  subordinate  organization. 
They  are  in  their  golden  age,  and  they  form 
the  church's  golden  opportunity.  Nothing 
else  in  its  work  is  so  promising.  It  may  be 
a  church  that  occupies  a  position  of  com- 
manding influence,  and  has  heavy  duties  in 
leading  the  thought  and  shaping  the  moral 
sentiment  of  a  large  community,  but  it  will 
lose  nothing  of  influence  or  standing  if  it 
brings  all  possible  resources  to  bear  upon 
the  problem  of  securing  the  regular  attend- 
ance and  the  reverent  attention  of  these 
young  people  at  its  services. 

The  effort  will  call  for  patience.  Some 
of  these  young  people  will  assert  their  inde- 
pendence in  perverse  and  exasperating  ways. 
Disappointed  hopes  are  familiar  inmates  of 
every  heart  that  deals  with  youth.  But 
those  who  drift  out  of  Sunday-school  and 
seldom  or  never  attend  church  are  not  to 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  WOESHIP       197 

be  given  up.  They  are  to  be  followed  with 
a  care  as  faithful  and  a  love  as  true  as 
though  they  were  already  communicants  of 
the  church.  If  we  were  less  hasty  and  im- 
patient, less  ready  to  cross  their  names  off 
our  lists  and  our  memories  when  they  turn 
their  backs  upon  us,  perhaps  fewer  young 
men  would  remain  in  the  far  country  of 
estrangement  from  the  church. 

4.  If  the  church  is  to  command  the  re- 
spect of  youth,  church-membership  should 
be  held  before  them  as  an  ideal  for  ma- 
turity. There  are  exceptional  children  who 
should  be  received  into  the  church  very 
early,  and  it  is  an  unwise  course  to  put  off 
any  who  manifest  a  really  intelligent  desire 
to  become  communicants.  But  the  man 
who  defers  church-membership  until  the 
follies  of  youth  are  past  is  in  a  more  hope- 
ful spiritual  condition  than  the  one  who 
went  through  it  all  in  childhood  and  con- 
siders it  a  thing  outgrown.  The  very  heart 
is  taken  out  of  youth  if  it  have  not  some- 
thing to  look  forward  to.  In  religious  mat- 
ters, as  in  others,  it  is  a  mistake  to  deprive 
young  people  of  the  privilege  of  anticipating 


198     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 


things  which  the  older  people  enjoy  but 
which  are  still  denied  to  them.  Too  often 
the  spirit  of  *'  'T  is  done,  the  great  transac- 
tion's  done"  takes  possession  of  the  boys 
and  girls  that  have  been  received  into  com- 
munion, and  their  development  is  arrested 
because  they  have  been  admitted  too  early 
and  too  easily  to  the  highest  privileges  of 
church  life.  Sixteen  to  twenty  years  is  in 
general  the  best  age  for  young  people  to 
join  the  church  ;  and  then  they  are  not  to 
come  in  as  those  who  have  already  attained, 
but  as  those  entering  a  race,  determined  to 
press  on  to  a  goal  clearly  seen  but  not  to  be 
reached  without  earnest  effort. 

5.  Finally,  in  all  dealings  with  young 
people,  it  is  necessary  to  bear  constantly  in 
mind  the  distinction  between  personal  and 
institutional  religion.  That  is  not  first 
which  is  institutional,  but  that  which  is 
personal;  then  that  which  is  institutional. 
Youth's  first  task  is  to  achieve  a  personal 
religion.  In  doing  so  he  is  very  likely  to 
undervalue  religious  institutions.  He  will 
probably  affect  to  be  able  to  do  without 
them  for  a  time ;  he  may  boast  that  he  can 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  AVOESHIP       199 

find  and  worship  God  as  well  by  other 
means.  It  may  be  that  he  must  learn  some 
lessons  in  the  school  of  life  before  he  is  pre- 
pared to  acknowledge  his  debt  to  the  insti- 
tutions of  worship.  But  if  he  seriously  takes 
those  lessons  to  heart,  he  will  come  in  time 
to  see  the  value  of  the  church  to  society  and 
to  himself.  He  will  learn  that  human  wel- 
fare is  essentially  a  social  thing,  and  no  man 
can  be  saved  outside  the  Christian  commu- 
nity. He  will  find  that  the  very  things 
among  his  own  spiritual  possessions  on  which 
he  prides  himself  most  are  his  only  by  virtue 
of  his  place  in  a  Christian  society,  so  that  he 
must  ask  himself,  What  hast  thou  that  thou 
hast  not  received  ?  And  he  will  discover 
that,  next  to  the  school  of  life,  the  school  of 
worship  is  the  educational  center  for  God's 
discipline  of  human  souls.  There,  under  the 
tuition  of  the  heavenly  influences  that  are 
exercised  by  devout  prayer  and  lofty  praise 
and  reverent  meditation,  the  soul  is  led  most 
surely  forth  to  meet  its  God ;  and  he  who 
once  has  learned,  in  the  school  of  life,  to  say 
from  the  heart,  "  I  love  thy  kingdom.  Lord," 
is  likely  to  go  on,  as  the  years  of  sweet  and 


200     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

sober  experience  add  their  touches  to  his 
spirit  and  finish  its  education,  and  say, 

' '  I  love  thy  church,  O  God. 


**  Beyond  my  highest  joy 

I  prize  her  heavenly  ways, 
Her  sweet  communion,  solemn  vows, 
Her  hymns  of  love  and  praise." 


CHAPTER  IX 

Aims  and  Expectations 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  study  of 
adolescence,  which  has  attracted  so  much 
attention  in  recent  years,  would  issue  i;i 
valuable  practical  suggestions  for  the  guid- 
ance of  those  who  deal  with  youth.  Nor 
has  it  been  barren  of  such  issue ;  many  of 
its  findings  are  already  the  commonplaces 
of  educational  literature.  No  other  portion 
of  this  field  of  research,  moreover,  has  pos- 
sessed such  compelling  interest  or  been  so 
richly  fruitful  as  that  which  deals  with  the 
religious  experience  of  youth.  A  new  vi- 
sion of  the  meaning  of  religious  work  for 
youth  has  been  opened  to  men,  with  new 
renderings  of  the  aims,  ideals,  expectations, 
materials  and  methods  of  religious  educa- 
tion. Our  next  task  will  be  to  develop, 
from  that  course  of  spiritual  development 
which  has  been  shown  to  be  typical  of  ado- 

301 


202   educatio:nal  eva:ngelism 

lescence,  certain  working  principles  as  to  the 
aims  and  expectations  in  accordance  with 
which  religious  work  for  youth  is  to  be  con- 
ceived and  organized. 

Since  youth  stands  by  itself  as  a  period  of 
life  unique  in  significance,  the  aim  of  relig- 
ious work  for  youth  is  to  be  sharply  distin- 
guished from  the  aim  of  religious  work  for 
childhood  or  maturity.  The  distinction  is 
found  in  the  necessity  for  the  complete  fusion 
of  the  evangelistic  and  educational  ideals  for 
youth.  With  men  they  are  divided.  Those 
who  are  mature  in  character  and  settled  in 
habit  are  treated  as  either  believers  or  unbe- 
lievers. Religious  work  for  them  proceeds 
upon  the  assumption  that  they  have  either 
some  established  personal  faith  to  be  de- 
veloped and  encouraged,  or  a  settled  unbe- 
lief not  easily  overthrown.  The  object  of 
religious  work  for  men  is  correctly  enough 
divided  into  two  departments  according  to 
the  old  program — to  convert  sinners  and 
edify  saints.  To  children,  however,  this  dis- 
tinction is  not  properly  applied.  The}^  are 
not  as  yet  either  believers  or  unbelievers, 
Christians    or    skeptics,   saints   or  sinners. 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        203 

They  are  the  subjects  of  a  religious  develop- 
ment that  has  only  begun.  The  object  of 
religious  work  with  children  is  to  promote 
that  development,  postponing  the  attempt 
to  separate  believers  from  unbelievers  until 
years  of  discretion  are  reached.  The  dis- 
tinctive aim  is  to  draw  out  the  religious 
capacities  of  the  child  by  impressing  him 
deeply  with  the  objective  realities  of  relig- 
ion— the  being  and  fatherhood  of  God,  the 
life  and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  fundamental 
requirements  of  the  moral  law  and  the  Chris- 
tian life. 

Now  the  youth  are  like  children  in  that 
they  are  not  to  be  sharply  divided  into 
Christians  and  unbelievers  :  but  they  are  un- 
like the  children  in  that  they  have  reached 
years  of  discretion  and  personal  choice. 
The  distinctive  aim  of  religious  work  with 
youth,  therefore,  is  the  adjustment  of  the 
subjective  life  to  the  religious  ideal.  This 
is  the  one  aim  of  evangelism,  and  religious 
work  for  youth  is  fundamentally  evangelis- 
tic. The  adjustment  in  view,  however,  is 
not  to  be  regarded  as  a  thing  that  is 
achieved  by  a  single  act  of  will,  or  in  a  brief 


204   educatio:nal  evangelism 

time ;  with  a  man  it  may  be  this,  but  with 
a  youth  it  is,  normally,  a  process  running 
through  some  years.  The  method  of  secur- 
ing it  is,  therefore,  naturally  and  essentially, 
educational.  Religious  work  for  youth  is 
distinguished  from  that  for  the  child  or  the 
mature  Christian  by  its  deliberate  evan- 
gelistic aim,  its  purpose  to  secure  personal 
choice  of  the  religious  life ;  it  is  distin- 
guished from  that  for  the  mature  unbe- 
liever by  its  educational  method.  It  can- 
not fail  to  be  evangelistic,  because  it  must 
seek  to  bring  the  soul  to  God  in  explicit 
personal  choice ;  it  cannot  fail  to  be  educa- 
tional, because  the  adjustment  of  the  soul 
which  it  seeks  is  an  orderl}^  development  of 
an  inner  capacity  for  divine  fellowship.  An 
education  in  religion  that  neglects  the  need  of 
voluntary,  personal  determination  of  spiritual 
relationships  is  not  suited  to  youth  ;  neither  is 
an  evangelistic  method  that  seeks  a  short  cut 
to  a  Christian  life.  Nothing  but  a  thorough- 
going adjustment  of  the  entire  personal  life 
to  the  divine  order  can  satisfy  our  ideal. 
This  means  that,  for  youth,  the  ideals  of 
evangelism  and  education  in  religion  coalesce. 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        205 

Elsewhere  they  are  distinct ;  here  they  are 
completely  fused.  The  lirst  principle  of 
religious  work  for  youth  is  that  the  evan- 
gelistic aim  and  the  educational  method  are 
to  be  blended  into  one  inclusive,  far-reach- 
ing design. 

This  being  the  general  aim,  there  is  em- 
braced under  it  a  definite  specific  aim  for 
each  of  youth's  three  periods. 

For  early  adolescence,  the  specific  aim  is 
the  assistance  of  the  soul  to  a  distinct,  indi- 
vidual, moral  character.  Religious  influ- 
ences are  to  help  adolescent  boys  and  girls 
to  achieve  their  freedom,  to  discover 
and  realize  their  distinctive  individuality. 
Wherever,  in  the  name  of  religion,  we 
hinder  this  process,  we  are  only  endeavor- 
ing to  thwart  nature  and  God.  Parents, 
teachers  and  pastors  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  youth  on  the  other,  should  come  to  an 
explicit  understanding  that  the  youth  is  to 
have  all  the  freedom  that  belongs  to  him, 
and  is  to  be  assisted  to  it  by  his  religious 
advisers  as  fast  as  he  can  bear  it.  The 
point  at  which  systems  of  religious  educa- 
tion generally  break  down  is  their  failure, 


206     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

or  inability,  to  make  provision  for  the 
necessary  individuation  of  the  soul  in  youth. 
Nothing  is  more  unfortunate  than  to  give 
the  youth  the  impression  that  religion  re- 
quires him  to  forego  his  personal  independ- 
ence. The  true  educational  method  will 
understand  that  the  day  must  come  when 
the  young  soul,  like  a  new-formed  star, 
must  swing  itself  free  from  the  mass  of 
which  it  has  been  a  part  and  orb  itself  into 
a  separate  completeness  ;  and  it  will  pro- 
pound as  its  controlling  ideal  for  the  early 
years  of  adolescence  the  achievement  of  a 
free  character,  controlled  no  longer  from 
without  by  artificial  supports  and  external 
restraints,  but  from  within  by  a  sovereign 
law  of  self-government. 

The  specific  method  by  which  religious 
guides  are  to  promote  the  achievement  of  a 
free  character  by  the  youth  is  a  gradual, 
though  often  rapid,  relaxation  of  outward 
control  accompanied  at  every  step  by  in- 
sistence on  self-control.  They  are  to  urge 
upon  the  youth  his  individual  responsibility, 
and  make  him  bear  it  in  increasing  measure. 
They  are  to  abjure  the  tone  of  authority, 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        207 


remind  the  youth  that  he  is  not  only  I'ree 
but  responsible,  and  urge  him,  in  a  friendly 
and   companionable  way,  to  act  as  a  free 
person  and  leai'n  to  bear  the  consequences 
of  his  own  actions.     Restraint  may  still  be 
exercised  where  the  youth  is  not  seriously 
concerned  to  claim  his  freedom ;  but  when 
he  is  keenly  anxious  to  take  a  matter  in 
charge  himself  and  is  willing  to  assume  all 
the  responsibility,  it  is  usually  a  mistake  to 
refuse  him  the  privilege.     The  teaching  of 
pulpit    and    classroom    should   now   make 
clear  the  requirements  of  a  free  life.     The 
youth  is  to  be  made   to   understand   that 
the  message  of  life  to  him  is  not  a  mere 
invitation    to   come   forth   into   the   broad 
fields  of  opportunity  and  roam  at  will,  but 
a     challenge     to    come    out    and    try    his 
strength,  show  what  there  is  of  ability  and 
resource    in   him,   see   how   he    can   stand 
up   under   life's    burdens,    and   meet   those 
tests  of  skill  and  readiness  and  endurance 
which  are  not  a  game  but  a  destiny.     Only 
those  are  ready  for  this  challenge  vvho  have 
acquired  good  self-command.     The  ideal  of 
perfect  self-mastery  is  to  shine  resplendent 


208     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

before  the  eyes  of  youth.  Let  him  know 
that  life  requires  him  to  be  master  of  him- 
self in  fact  as  well  as  in  name ;  that  self- 
government  means  that  he  shall  be  able  to 
force  his  blundering  hands  to  acquire  skill, 
compel  his  reluctant  mind  to  think  and 
learn,  and  hold  himself,  through  weariness 
and  discouragement,  to  a  steadfast  purpose. 
If  he  would  be  free,  let  him  make  sure  of 
the  sufficiency  of  the  law  within  to  govern 
him  before  he  casts  off  the  law  without. 

For  the  middle  period  of  adolescence,  the 
distinctive  aim  of  the  religious  work  that 
seeks  the  adjustment  of  the  young  person's 
life  to  the  divine  order  should  be  to  equip 
him  with  a  stock  of  religious  ideas.  This 
aim  of  course  runs  through  all  the  instruc- 
tion of  earlier  and  later  years ;  but  it  is  to 
stand  forth  in  especial  prominence  at  this 
time.  With  all  our  emphasis  on  right  teach- 
ing, it  does  not  appear  that  the  importance 
of  the  mental  period  is  half  realized  by  re- 
ligious workers.  Professor  James  has  said 
that  it  is  difficult  to  get  a  new  idea  into  a 
man's  mind  after  he  is  thirty  years  old  ;  one 
may  venture   the  proposition,  pedagogical 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        209 

heresy  though  it  may  appear,  that  it  is  as 
difficult  to  get  an  idea,  in  the  same  sense  of 
the  word,  into  the  mind  of  a  boy  before  he 
is  fifteen.  Not  that  children  do  not  learn, 
and  remember  what  they  learn  ;  there  is  no 
disputing  the  old  maxim  that  the  mind  of 
the  child  is  wax  to  receive  and  marble  to 
retain.  But  with  all  their  powers  of  acquisi- 
tion, just  what  the  children  do  not  acquire 
is — ideas.  They  lay  the  foundations  of 
knowledge,  they  accumulate  the  materials 
and  tools  to  think  with.  But  the  work  of 
thinking  out  a  stock  of  ideas,  that  shall  be 
regulative  for  the  soul  through  all  its  future 
career,  that  shall,  in  fact,  constitute  one's 
mental  equipment  for  life,  is  performed  in 
middle  adolescence,  neither  earlier  nor  later. 
We  carry  through  life  many  impressions  re- 
ceived in  childhood,  but  the  ideas  with  which 
we  live  and  by  which  we  are  controlled  to 
the  end  are  commonly  acquired  in  the  men- 
tal period  of  youth. 

Here,  then,  is  the  time  when  the  great 
truths  of  the  Christian  religion  are  to 
be  set  before  the  growing  mind  in  their 
most  stimulating  form.     Thought  is  to  be 


210     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

encouraged — independent,  unconventional 
thought ;  originality  is  not  to  be  quenched  ; 
dogmatism  must  be  banished.  But  those 
who  would  help  the  youth  are  to  insist  that 
thought  shall  be  thorough,  that  the  mind 
shall  dwell  on  ideas,  not  fancies,  grasp 
realities,  not  dreams,  and  rest  in  truths, 
not  half-truths.  It  is  to  be  considered  more 
important,  at  this  time,  to  become  inured 
to  the  work  of  thinking  than  to  hasten  to 
the  conclusions  in  a  wide  range  of  thought. 
To  think  one's  way  through  some  one  ques- 
tion, unraveling  all  the  snarls  and  putting 
the  matter  in  right  relations  on  every  side, 
is  better  than  finding  out  what  others  have 
thought  about  a  hundred  questions.  The 
struggles  with  doubt  and  uncertainty  that 
are  so  characteristic  of  this  period  are 
nearly  always  brought  on  by  difficulty 
with  some  one  point — more  often  concern- 
ing the  application  of  truth  to  life  than 
concerning  the  validity  of  doctrinal  truth ; 
and  it  is  the  common  testimon}^  that  to 
settle  one's  doubts  on  the  particular  points 
of  difficulty  usually  disposes  of  them  all. 
For  real  thought  does  not  go  very  far  until 


AIMS  A:^D  expectations       211 

it  discovers  that  any  one  point  leads  to 
every  other,  so  that  when  one  has  solved 
life's  meaning  in  one  aspect  he  has  solved  it 
for  all. 

It  is  to  be  a  principle  with  religious 
guides  of  youth,  that  when  the  mental 
powers  are  developing  most  rapidly  they 
are  to  be  fed  with  the  food  of  thought,  and 
exercised  upon  genuine  tasks.  The  defect 
of  much  teaching  in  this  period  is  that  it 
takes  all  zest  and  reality  out  of  the  tasks  of 
thought  by  leaning  from  the  first  upon  a 
foregone  conclusion.  The  thinking  of  the 
fathers,  however  valid,  will  not  answer  for 
the  youth  ;  he  is  called  to  work  out  for 
himself  a  respectable  set  of  ideas  and  be- 
liefs, and  it  should  be  real  work.  The 
greatest  peril  of  this  time  is  not  thought, 
investigation,  even  doubt,  but  the  refusal  to 
think,  the  tolerance  that  is  mere  laziness, 
laying  down  an  argument  without  pursuing 
it  to  the  end,  the  indolence  that  com- 
promises on  agnosticism  for  lack  of  energy 
to  think.  The  personal  adjustment  of  the 
soul  to  God  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as 
chiefly  an  intellectual  matter ;  but  man  is 


212     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

morally  responsible  for  the  use  of  his  think- 
ing powers,  and  as  an  intelligent  being  is 
required  to  discover  for  himself  a  rational 
modus  vivendi  in  view  of  the  intelligible 
wrorld  of  truth. 

For  later  adolescence,  the  specific  aim  of 
religious  work  should  be  the  adjustment  of 
personal  and  social  relations.  The  youth  is 
now  to  become  an  effective  social  force 
within  the  institutions  that  make  for  human 
welfare.  Every  consideration,  natural,  po- 
litical, ethical,  religious,  now  calls  for  the 
socialization  of  his  personal  power.  As  he 
takes  his  place  in  the  world,  becomes  a 
factor  in  the  social  life  of  his  community, 
finds  his  occupation  and  life-work,  enters 
upon  the  rights  and  duties  of  citizenship, 
and  prepares  for  those  of  a  new  home  of 
his  own,  the  ranking  need  and  interest 
of  his  spiritual  nature  is  an  interpretation 
of  the  social  ideal  and  an  enforcement 
of  its  claims  upon  his  capacities  for  social 
service. 

The  function  of  religion  in  this  social  ad- 
justment of  youth  is  primarily  to  develop 
the  Christian  social  spirit.     The  social  ideal 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS       213 

is  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  meaning  of 
the  organized  life  of  mankind  as  a  progress- 
ive realization  of  God's  kingdom  is  to  be 
interpreted  to  youth,  and  the  need  of  a 
religious  spirit  in  the  conduct  of  all  human 
affairs  made  clear.  The  youth  is  to  view 
himself  as  a  factor  in  the  world-life  whose 
value  is  proportionate  to  the  power  of  the 
Christian  spirit  of  faith  and  service  in  him. 
He  is  now  to  learn  that  the  Christian  re- 
ligion is  the  great  spiritual  dynamic  for 
rendering  the  organized  life  of  humanity  a 
blessing  to  all,  and  that  Christian  institutions 
are  the  centers  whence  this  dynamic  oper- 
ates upon  the  world. 

As  one  step  toward  the  perfect  socializa- 
tion of  the  youth  as  a  Christian  factor  in 
the  world,  religious  work  aims  to  secure  for 
him  a  felicitous  adjustment  within  the  insti- 
tutions of  religion.  In  the  ideal  case,  which 
is  not  rare  but  very  common,  the  youth,  hav- 
ing learned  to  meet  individual  responsibility 
efficiently,  and  having  thought  out  his  per- 
sonal creed,  becomes  a  member  of  the  church 
at  the  beginning  of  the  social  period  or 
shortly  before.     The  socialization  of  his  re- 


214     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ligious  life  is  the  precursor  of  the  adjust- 
ments soon  to  be  made  to  the  new  social 
duties  of  the  state  and  home,  and  his  con- 
nection with  corporate  religion  is  to  furnish 
inspiration  for  the  effective  application  of 
his  personality  to  the  tasks  that  become  his 
portion  of  the  world's  work.  To  secure  the 
identification  of  the  youth  with  the  church, 
therefore,  after  he  has  learned  the  meaning 
of  personal  responsibility  and  acquired  a 
stock  of  personal  religious  convictions,  but 
early  in  the  social  period,  is  to  be  made  a 
specific  aim  of  religious  work. 

As  we  see  it,  then,  the  aim  of  religious 
work  for  youth  is  to  secure  the  complete 
and  harmonious  adjustment  of  the  personal 
life  to  the  divine  order;  including  in  this 
adjustment  the  intelligent  acceptance  of 
personal  responsibility  for  one's  life  and 
acts,  the  acquisition  of  a  well- wrought  set 
of  regulative  ideas  and  beliefs,  and  an  effec- 
tive adjustment  of  personal  power  to  the 
demands  of  social  service,  both  within  and 
without  the  church.  Nothing  short  of  this 
satisfies  or  even  approaches  the  ideal  for 
youth ;  to  be  satisfied  with  any  lesser  aim  is 


AIMS  AXD  EXPECTATIONS        215 

to  fall  below  the  standard  set  by  the  soul  of 
youth  itself. 

The  study  of  the  religious  experience  of 
adolescence  has  also  made  more  clear  the 
expectations  that  are  to  be  entertained  by 
those  engaged  in  religious  work  for  youth. 

To  clear  the  ground  of  false  expectations 
at  the  outset :  There  is  no  warrant  for  ex- 
pecting that  children  who  are  religiously 
minded  can  always  be  led  up  to  manhood's 
faith  without  periods  of  doubt  and  skep- 
ticism ;  or  that  the  religious  pathway  of 
youth  can  always  be  made  smooth  and 
easy ;  or  that  anything  can  take  away  the 
uncertainty,  turmoil,  restlessness  and  un- 
easy temper  of  youth ;  or  that  any  great 
number  of  youth  will  follow,  except  in  the 
most  general  way,  any  particular  course 
marked  out  for  them ;  or  that  anything  like 
uniformity  of  religious  experience  for  both 
sexes  and  all  temperaments  can  be  secured ; 
or  that  souls  will  be  won,  in  any  great 
numbers,  by  system ;  or  that  any  one 
method  or  instrumentality  can  appeal  to 
and  satisfy  all  youth  ;  or  that  a  majority  of 
the  youth  ought  to  join  the  church  in  early 


216     EDUCATIO:NrAL  EVANGELISM 

adolescence  ;  or  that  any  plan  or  system  that 
may  be  devised  will  bring  all  even  of  the 
serious-minded  and  well-intentioned  youth 
into  the  church. 

But,  positively,  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
religious  work,  properly  conceived  and  un- 
dertaken, will  find  a  powerful  ally  in  the 
nature  of  the  youth  himself.  It  will  count 
upon  nature  to  further  the  work  of  grace  in 
the  young  heart.  The  better  we  understand 
the  soul  of  youth  and  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
the  more  evident  is  the  fitness  of  the  one 
for  the  other.  The  essential  spiritual  proc- 
esses of  youth's  development,  which  must 
represent  the  Creator's  design  and  intent  for 
the  soul,  point  unmistakably  to  just  such  an 
adjustment  of  the  personal  life  to  the  divine 
will  as  an  enveloping  environment  as  the 
gospel  of  Christ  seeks  to  bring  about.  The 
blunders  of  youth  in  his  first  use  of  free- 
dom, his  experience  with  sin,  the  inevitable 
discovery  of  the  reaction  of  his  deeds  upon 
himself,  show  him  early  his  need  of  a  divine 
Redeemer  and  Lord.  It  will  surely  tend  to 
impart  sanity  and  steadiness  to  our  evangel- 
istic efforts  in  behalf  of  young  people  if  it 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        217 

is  understood  that  it  is  the  part  of  evangel- 
ism to  assist  nature,  not  to  contravene  it. 
The  soul  of  the  youth  is  to  be  formed, 
rather  than  reformed ;  and  even  where  rad- 
ical reform  is  necessary,  it  is  not  to  be  re- 
constructed on  some  other  plan  than  na- 
ture's. There  may  be  a  necessary  conflict 
between  nature  and  grace  in  the  heart  of 
the  mature  sinner  whose  soul  has  been  first 
deformed  and  then  ossified  in  its  malforma- 
tions, but  in  youth  nothing  but  unnature 
works  against  the  purposes  of  God's  grace. 
Accordingly,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  na- 
ture will  provide  a  proper  and  suflBcient 
safeguard  for  youth's  freedom  when  the 
time  of  estrangement  comes.  This  is  found 
in  the  conscience  of  the  youth  himself.  We 
have  seen  that  conscience  is  formed  in  the 
period  that  precedes  the  outburst  of  adoles- 
cent life.  The  measure  of  a  youth's  pros- 
pects of  success  in  a  free  life  is  the  efficiency 
of  his  conscience.  And  perhaps  the  most 
reassuring  fact  among  the  phenomena  of 
adolescence  is  that  amid  all  the  storm  and 
stress,  the  overturnings  and  readjustments 
of  this  time,  no  other  feature  of  the  inner 


218     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

life  maintains  itself  so  uncompromisingly  as 
conscience.  When  the  soul  puts  away  the 
things  of  childhood,  the  lessons  of  elders, 
the  counsels  of  experience,  even  its  own 
early  ideals  and  religious  faith,  conscience 
still  repeats  its  undeniable  "  you  ought." 
In  dividing  itself  from  all  that  is  not  self, 
the  soul  finds  conscience  on  the  hither  side 
of  the  line  ;  in  all  alienation,  that  is  inalien- 
able. It  may  indeed  become  hardened  by  a 
career  of  evil-doing,  its  voice  be  silenced  by 
repeated  disobedience  ;  but  that  takes  time ; 
in  the  awakening  soul  of  adolescence,  we 
are  to  expect  to  find  conscience  at  its 
best. 

But  what  is  an  efficient  conscience  ?  It 
is  not  a  supersensitive  conscience,  or  a  pru- 
dish conscience,  or  a  fearful  conscience.  It 
is  a  conscience  that  makes  duty  plain,  and 
lays  upon  one  a  compelling  imperative  to 
perform  it.  As  commonly  understood,  con- 
science is  both  a  power  of  moral  discern- 
ment and  a  sense  of  obligation.  The  first  is 
its  intellectual,  the  second  its  moral  side. 
The  power  of  moral  discrimination  is  more 
or  less  dependent  on  one's  general  intelli- 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        219 


gence,   but  the  sense  of  obligation  is  not 
thus   conditioned.      It   is   the   core   of    the 
moral  nature,  the  spinal  column  of  the  soul. 
One  is  strong  in  the  elements  of  character 
just  in  proportion  to  the  strength  within  him 
of  a  compelling  sense  of  personal  obligation. 
Strength  of  conscience  is  manifested,  not  by 
any  finical  sensitiveness  about  doing  certain 
questionable  things,  but   by  the  vigor  and 
intensity  with  which  one  feels  his  obligation 
to   do  the  things  that  are  unquestionably 
good.     No  external  safeguard  of  any  kind, 
nothing  but  a  miracle,  can  save  a  youth  if 
he  has  no  conscience ;  but  if  his  conscience 
has  been  formed  aright,  and  he  enters  the 
storm-belt  of  adolescence  with  a  masterful 
sense  of  his  personal  responsibility,  there  is 
no  need  to  fear  what  the  world  or  the  flesh 
or  the  devil  can  do  to  him. 

It  is  to  be  expected  also  that  a  natural 
spiritual  development  will  in  a  few  years  at 
longest  put  a  period  to  the  most  unpleasant 
features  of  youth's  estrangement.  After 
the  first  flush  of  independence,  there  comes 
the  time  of  sober  second  thought.  This  is 
to  be  anticipated,  watched  for,  planned  for. 


220     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

Religious  work  is  to  count  upon  a  real 
movement  of  progress  toward  a  less  antag- 
onistic spirit  and  a  better  mind  ;  it  is  just 
possible  that  fewer  youth  would  be  arrested 
in  their  development  at  the  point  of  religious 
estrangement  if  they  were  not  so  often 
given  to  understand  that  that  first  step  of 
progress  is  looked  upon  as  the  final  one. 
Spasmodic  evangelism  attempts  to  win  a 
self-assertive  youth,  fails,  and  gives  over  the 
effort  with  a  tone  of  despair  that  often 
makes  the  youth  actually  believe  that  he  has 
sinned  a^vay  his  day  of  grace.  Educational 
evangelism  lets  him  try  his  freedom,  makes 
him  feel  his  responsibility,  counts  on  the 
sobering  effect  of  experience,  watches  for 
the  appearance  of  the  broader  thought  and 
the  aw^akening  of  the  instincts  that  point  to 
the  spirit's  reconciliation,  and,  keeping  near 
him  through  the  whole  of  this  development, 
never  lets  him  dream  that  he  has  finished 
his  course  or  reached  a  stopping-place,  much 
less  that  he  is  hopelessly  lost. 

With  regard  to  the  fruition,  in  the  social 
period  of  youth  and  later,  of  religious  work 
conducted  on  the  principles  of  educational 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS        221 

evangelism,  it  is  to  be  expected,  for  one 
thing,  that  it  will  result  in  many  Christian 
characters  of  the  finest  type.  They  cannot 
be  produced  by  the  wholesale,  any  more 
than  the  public  schools  can  make  Masters 
of  Arts  of  all  their  pupils.  But  those  who 
come  to  a  Christian  manhood  or  womanhood 
through  a  youth  in  which  religious  training 
has  always  been  broadly  evangelistic  in  aim 
and  soundly  educational  in  method  should 
generally  be  well  grounded  in  the  faith,  in- 
telligent, with  a  fine  appreciation  of  spiritual 
things,  efficient  in  practical  service,  compe- 
tent to  bear  heavy  moral  burdens  and  meet 
the  strain  of  living  for  God  in  an  unholy 
world.  The}^  are  likely  to  possess  a  sense 
of  proportion  that  will  restrain  them  from 
religious  extravaganza,  and  forbid  them  also 
to  belittle  religion  or  its  just  claims. 
Schooled  to  the  work  of  the  church  from  the 
time  they  are  ready  for  social  service,  they 
will  be  skilful  and  efficient  workers  for  the 
Master.  And  it  is  chiefly  among  those  whose 
faith  has  ripened  under  this  wise  and  thorough 
culture  that  we  must  look  for  that  depth  of 
conviction  without  which  men  and  churches 


222     EDUCATIOl^AL  EVANGELISM 

may  be  busy  but  never  prosperous,  big  but 
never  great,  showy  but  never  strong. 

A  very  important  fruit  to  be  expected 
from  such  religious  treatment  of  youth  as 
we  demand  is  a  better  temper  and  attitude 
toward  religion  among  those  who  do  not 
come  into  the  church.  The  sorest  charges 
made  against  the  revival  system  relate  to  its 
effects  upon  the  souls  that  are  turned  away 
from  religion,  driven  into  deeper  doubt  and 
outright  unbelief,  taught  to  become  scoffers 
and  mockers,  by  its  methods.  If  the  relig- 
ion of  Christ  is  presented  to  the  growing 
soul  in  accordance  with  its  real  needs  as 
they  become  manifest,  it  can  never  appear 
to  that  soul  a  mass  of  deception,  the  inven- 
tion of  priests  or  fanatics,  or  a  thing  to  be 
ridiculed  and  despised.  Under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances,  there  is  every  prob- 
ability that  large  numbers  of  men  will  fail 
to  become  professors  of  religion  ;  but  what 
temper  they  shall  display  toward  religion 
will  depend  upon  the  manner  in  which  re- 
ligious duties  and  doctrines  have  been  set 
before  them.  A  large,  wise,  loving,  faith- 
ful treatment  of  the  youth  by  educational 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIOIsrS        223 

methods  will  leave  no  such  scars  upon  their 
spirits  in  after  days  as  many  are  disfigured 
with  to-day. 

There  is  warrant  also  for  expecting  that 
such  religious  work  for  youth  as  an  educa- 
tional system  with  a  large  evangelistic  aim 
prescribes  will  contribute  largely  to  the  res- 
toration of  religion  to  its  rightful  preemi- 
nence among  human  concerns.  Much  is  be- 
ing said  of  the  weakening  of  the  hold  of  re- 
ligion upon  men,  marked  by  the  decay  of 
power  in  the  pulpit,  of  deep  conviction  in 
the  pews,  of  the  influence  of  the  church. 
If  religion  has  lost  respect,  is  it  not  partly 
because  it  has  so  often  been  rendered  con- 
temptible by  its  adherents  ?  Some  religious 
institutions  and  efforts  are  despised  because 
they  deserve  to  be.  And  is  not  the  educa- 
tional approach  to  religion — not  the  intellec- 
tual study  of  religion,  but  the  approach  to  the 
whole  spiritual  concern  of  man  by  an  ordered 
and  wisely  guided  development  of  his  inner 
capacities — the  surest  remedy  for  all  this  ? 
If  religion  wants  influence,  it  should  have 
done  with  haste  and  intemperate  zeal  and 
short  cuts  and  claptrap,  cease  endeavoring 


224     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

to  meet  permanent  demands  by  temporary 
expedients,  and  go  about  its  work  with  a 
breadth  of  design  and  a  steadiness  of  pur- 
pose worthy  of  its  high  claims,  and  a  move- 
ment toward  its  ends  that  is  as  unhasting 
and  as  unresting  as  the  ongoing  of  life  itself. 
The  displacement  of  religion  from  the  gen- 
eral educational  system  of  our  land,  and  the 
failure  as  yet  to  provide  an  adequate,  re- 
spect-compelling system  to  supply  the  lack, 
go  far  to  explain  the  degradation  of  religion 
from  its  former  prestige  among  us.  To  re- 
cover such  a  portion  of  that  prestige  as 
rightfully  belongs  to  it — no  one  wants  it  to 
monopolize  attention  as  it  once  did — there 
are  several  things  to  be  done,  but  none  more 
effective  than  to  provide  for  every  youth  an 
educational  approach  to  personal  religion,  a 
religious  training  that  is  everywhere  evangel- 
istic in  purpose  but  educational  in  method, 
that  shapes  its  expectations  year  by  year  in 
accordance  with  the  work  that  nature  is  then 
doing  in  the  soul,  and  counts  upon  the  sav- 
ing grace  of  God  to  work  along  the  lines  of 
spiritual  development  in  youth,  not  against 
them    nor  across   them.     A   generation  so 


AIMS  AND  EXPECTATIONS       225 


trained  will  not  all  be  church-members,  in- 
deed ;  but  they  will  not  hate  the  church 
and  despise  religion  ;  in  their  hearts  they 
will  revere  both,  and  worship  the  God  from 
whom  they  come. 


CHAPTER  X 
Agencies  and  Methods 

Those  who  are  engaged  in  Christian 
work  for  youth  are  sometimes  repelled  and 
disheartened  by  the  impossible  demands  made 
upon  them  in  the  name  of  scientific  method. 
A  conception  of  that  work,  however,  which 
makes  it  pursue  the  evangelistic  aim  through- 
out by  educational  appeals  to  the  naturall}^ 
unfolding  powers  of  the  soul,  will  go  far  to 
fit  the  scientific  demands  to  the  practical 
situation.  Progress  will  come  smoothly 
where  it  is  agreed,  on  the  one  hand,  that  re- 
ligious education  in  the  formative  years  of 
youth  is  not  to  waste  precious  time  in  the 
non-religious  study  of  religion, — the  scien- 
tific study  of  the  history  and  philosophy  of 
religion,  of  ethics  and  Christian  evidences, 
of  the  historical  and  literary  criticism  of  the 
Bible,  and  such  like  subjects,  is  for  later 
years — on  the  other  hand,  that  reliance 
226 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        227 

for  making  disciples  of  the  youth  is  to  be 
placed  chiefly  on  their  educational  treat- 
ment, not  on  sentimental  influences  or  emo- 
tional appeals. 

This  conception  of  religious  work  for 
young  people  has  already  in  fact  been  widely 
adopted.  It  is  being  discovered  that  the 
principles  and  methods  to  which  the  church 
has  been  brought  by  the  experience  of  the 
last  century  are  in  essence  identical  with  the 
principles  and  methods  to  which  we  are  shut 
up  by  the  psychological  and  pedagogical  re- 
quirements of  youth.  The  educational- 
evangelistic  ideal  is  already  implicit  in  the 
prevailing  conception  and  organization  of 
religious  work;  its  explicit  adoption  calls 
for  no  overturning  of  established  institu- 
tions and  no  new  machinery,  but  tends  rather 
to  simplify  our  complex  ecclesiastical  life. 
For  this  reason,  educational  evangelism 
offers  an  entirely  feasible  program  for  the 
ordinary  church  in  its  \vork.  The  agencies 
and  methods  required  by  its  principles  are 
already  at  hand,  as  we  shall  quickly  see. 

There  are  four  chief  instruments  of  edu- 
cation— impression,  instruction,  association 


228     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

and  self-expression.  These  answer  in  a  gen- 
eral way  to  the  four  principal  forms  of  re- 
ligious exercise,  worship,  discipleship,  fel- 
lowship and  service ;  and  from  the  use  to 
be  made  of  these  instruments  to  promote  the 
religious  adjustment  of  the  soul  to  God,  the 
primary  principles  governing  the  agencies 
and  methods  of  religious  work  for  youth 
may  be  deduced. 

Impressions  are  the  atmosphere  of  con- 
sciousness. Good  or  bad,  they  bear  the 
same  relation  to  the  health  of  the  mind  as 
the  air  we  breathe  bears  to  that  of  the  body. 
Of  all  the  instruments  of  education,  they 
should  receive  first  consideration,  because 
they  come  first  and  carry  farthest.  Bush- 
nell  called  that  period  of  the  child's  life  be- 
fore he  acquires  the  use  of  language  the  age 
of  impressions,  and  held  it  to  be  the  most 
important  time  for  shaping  the  child's  char- 
acter by  nurture.  Sensitiveness  to  impres- 
sions, however,  continues  throughout  child- 
hood, and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that 
the  experience  of  infancy  in  this  respect  is 
suggestively  repeated  in  early  adolescence. 


AGENCIES  AKD  METHODS        229 

Like  the  infant,  the  youth  is  without  lan- 
guage to  express  himself.  His  powers  of 
appreciation  develop  rapidly,  leaving  the 
powers  of  expression  far  behind.  With  only 
the  language  of  childhood  at  his  command, 
he  is  receiving  constant  revelations  of  a  new- 
realm  of  life.  He  can  find  no  words  to  em- 
body the  suggestions,  atmospheric  notions, 
hazy  ideas  that  are  borne  in  upon  him.  No 
more  than  the  infant,  can  he  tell  all  that  he 
thinks.  No  less  than  the  infant,  he  is  busy 
all  the  time  receiving  upon  a  keenly  sensi- 
tive soul  and  recording  in  an  active  memory 
lasting  impressions  of  which  at  present  he 
gives  no  sign. 

The  greatest  care  is  therefore  to  be  exer- 
cised to  give  the  youth  correct  impressions 
of  the  Christian  life.  His  impressions  are 
mostly  gathered  from  two  sources,  the  be- 
havior of  Christian  people,  and  the  public 
exercises  of  religion.  On  the  principle  of 
suggestion,  they  exercise  a  vast  degree  of 
control  over  thought  and  conduct  where 
more  explicit  counsels  would  be  disregarded 
or  forgotten.  It  is  futile  to  tell  a  youth  that 
the  Christian  life  is  good  if  he  sees  that 


230     EDUCATIONAL  EVAKGELISM 

Christian  people  find  it  distasteful,  that  our 
faith  is  full  of  joy  and  peace  if  our  actions 
show  anxiety  and  discontent,  that  worship 
is  a  delight  if  it  is  made  tedious  and  irksome, 
that  the  church  is  an  institution  of  divine 
splendor  if  it  is  neglected  and  despised  by 
the  community.  No  effort  is  to  be  spared, 
on  the  contrary,  to  impress  the  young  mind 
with  the  sincerity  of  the  faith  of  Christian 
people,  the  strengthening  and  consoling 
power  which  they  find  in  religion,  their 
genuine  conviction  that  he  is  missing  some- 
thing unspeakabl}^  precious  if  he  is  not 
himself  living  the  Christian  life.  Christian 
men  and  women  with  the  eyes  of  youth 
upon  them  must  not  pose,  nor  blow  the 
trumpet  before  them  in  the  streets,  but  they 
should  take  good  heed  to  the  impression  that 
their  Christian  conversation  is  making. 

But  the  special  form  of  religious  exercise 
that  makes  largest  use  of  impressions  for  edu- 
cational purposes  is  public  worship.  To  what 
has  already  been  said  of  the  place  of  the  youth 
in  the  services  of  worship,  it  is  here  to  be  added 
that  these  services  should  give  him  a  har- 
monious  and   profound  impression    of  the 


AGEXCIES  ANB  METHODS        231 

reality  of  God  and  the  soul,  the  power  of 
the  spiritual  world  upon  our  present,  the 
dignity  of  duty  and  the  authority  of  con- 
science, l^o  other  agency  can  make  these 
impressions  as  well  as  the  church  services. 
The  disastrous  fault  of  some  children's  re- 
ligious societies  is  found  in  the  havoc  that 
they  make  of  the  child's  more  wholesome 
religious  impressions ;  they  seem  to  make 
religion  a  matter  of  fidgety  busyness  instead 
of  a  simple  and  beautiful  relation  of  the  soul 
to  God.  If  we  look  for  right  impressions, 
few  agencies  and  simple  methods  must  be 
the  rule.  Complexity  of  religious  duties 
tends  to  distraction.  Everything  about  pub- 
lic worship,  from  the  style  of  the  building 
to  the  announcing  of  a  hymn,  is  to  be  given 
consideration  for  the  impression  that  it  will 
make  on  the  young  mind ;  and  those  who 
are  responsible  for  the  exercises  of  public 
worship  in  church,  Sunday-school,  prayer- 
meeting  and  elsewhere,  are  guilty  of  disas- 
trous carelessness  if  they  allow  lifeless 
preaching,  slovenly  praying,  fantastic  testi- 
mony, irreverent  and  ridiculous  singing,  or 
any  other  such  thing,  to  give  the  youth  a 


232     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

false  impression  concerning  the  dignity, 
beauty,  worth  and  satisfactoriness  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  Christ.  Where  the  religious 
education  of  children  and  youth  through 
their  impressions  is  made  a  definite  object 
of  endeavor,  much  thought  will  be  given  to 
the  worship  and  the  general  atmosphere  of 
the  Bible  school,  and  great  care  taken  in  the 
conduct  of  all  children's  and  young  people's 
meetings  ;  the  frequent  but  unforced  attend- 
ance of  the  children,  and  the  regular  attend- 
ance of  the  youth,  at  the  services  of  the 
church  will  be  sought,  largely  for  the  sake 
of  the  impressions  there  made ;  and  the  ar- 
rangement of  this  service,  with  its  prayers. 
Scripture,  music,  offering,  sermon  and  sac- 
rament will  be  made  with  the  presence  of 
these  impressionable  young  persons  in  mind. 

As  an  instrument  of  education,  instruc- 
tion is  so  important  that  it  has  often 
been  identified  with  education  itself.  Even 
where  the  other  instruments  are  duly  recog- 
nized, instruction  is  still  made  prominent  as 
furnishing  the  framework  for  a  progressive 
educational  course.     An  educational  evan- 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        233 

gelism  seeks  the  best  possible  instruction  for 
the  youth.  There  is  no  danger  of  over- 
intellectualism  in  religion  from  insisting 
that  along  with  the  other  things  involved  in 
the  personal  adjustment  of  an  intelligent 
being  to  a  rational  Creator,  some  knowledge 
in  that  being  of  that  Creator  and  his  ways 
is  essential.  To  make  a  disciple  is  to  make 
a  learner.  The  effort  to  devise  a  course  of 
religious  instruction  that  shall  be,  year  by 
year,  correctly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the 
developing  soul  is  to  be  ardently  pursued ; 
and  the  demand  for  skilful  and  efficient  in- 
structors deserves  attentive  heed. 

There  is  no  occasion,  however,  for  wast- 
ing present  opportunities  in  wistful  longing 
for  a  curriculum  of  unattainable  pedagogical 
perfection,  or  for  discouraging  the  present 
teaching  forces  with  demands  for  a  kind  of 
skill  and  efficiency  which  they  do  not  pos- 
sess and  cannot  acquire.  The  one  thing 
needful  is  at  hand.  Because  the  Bible  is  a 
piece  of  vital  literature,  it  speaks  from  life 
to  life.  The  all-important  thing  is  not  the 
course  of  lessons  or  the  special  pedagogical 
skill  of  the  teacher. .   It  is  rather  the  teach- 


234     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

er's  insight  into  his  work;  and  a  few- 
simple  principles  will  go  far  to  enable  the 
average  teacher  to  adapt  the  vital  teachings 
of  the  Bible  to  the  real  needs  of  his  pupils. 
It  is  to  be  his  explicit  aim  to  bring  the  souls 
of  his  class  into  right  relations  with  the  di- 
vine order,  not  by  an  occasional  special 
appeal,  but  by  an  educational  process  that 
moves  forward  step  by  step  through  a  series 
of  years.  In  this  process,  the  instruction 
given  is  a  conspicuous  feature,  and  its  ma- 
terials and  methods  are  important,  but  not 
so  important  as  the  particular  object  which 
the  teacher  shall  set  before  himself  to  be 
accomplished  by  any  and  all  means  in  each 
period  of  his  pupil's  life. 

There  are  five  successive  objects  to  be  at- 
tained by  religious  education,  and  to  each  of 
these  in  turn  the  teacher's  instruction  is  to 
contribute.  With  the  younger  children,  the 
object  is  to  awaken  and  enrich  the  child's 
God-consciousness  by  making  him  familiar 
with  the  fundamental  accounts  of  God's 
ways  in  nature  and  with  men.  With  the 
children  in  the  acquisitive  period,  the  object 
is  to  impart  a  knowledge  of  God's  Word ; 


AGEIN^CIES  AND  METHODS        235 

the  Bible,  objectively  viewed,  is  the  theme, 
and  acquisition  the  leading  interest.  Defi- 
nite lessons  are  to  be  assigned  and  required, 
and  the  child  should  feel  that  he  is  making 
real  progress  in  knowledge.  The  devotional 
tone  is  not  to  be  wanting  in  such  study,  but 
it  is  easily  overworked.  The  end  in  view  is 
to  get  the  conscience  of  the  child  firmly 
established  upon  the  objective  facts  of  re- 
ligious truth  and  the  moral  life  ;  and  to 
this  end,  his  attention  is  to  be  fixed  upon 
the  objective  facts,  and  seldom  diverted  to 
the  subjective  states  or  emotions  which  those 
facts  may  rightly  enough  produce  in  him. 
Self-knowledge  comes  in  youth  ;  now  is  the 
time  to  lay  the  substantial  foundations  of 
knowledge  of  that  which  is  beyond  one- 
self. 

The  transition  to  adolescence  calls  for  a 
marked  change  in  the  specific  object  of 
the  teacher's  work.  If  the  character  of  his 
teaching  changes  as  rapidly  as  the  nature  of 
the  youth  himself,  the  latter  is  not  likely  to 
think  that  he  has  outgrown  the  Sunday- 
school.  Instruction  must  now  assist  him  to 
a  free  character.     During  the  years  of  early 


236     EDUCATIO:NrAL  EVANGELISM 

adolescence,  when  the  soul  is  developing  a 
moral  individuality,  instruction  is  to  lay  its 
emphasis  on  individual  ethics.  This  is  the 
major  subject  in  the  ideal  course  of  instruc- 
tion for  this  period.  Questions  of  personal 
conduct  are  now  at  the  fore.  The  youth 
no  longer  is  satisfied  to  learn,  in  an  objec- 
tive way,  what  is  right  and  what  wrong;  he 
wants  to  be  led  to  an  insight  of  his  own 
into  moral  principles.  But  he  does  not 
want  instruction  in  formal  ethics.  He  pre- 
fers lessons  from  the  book  of  life.  Specific, 
vital  instances,  developing  the  principles  of 
conduct  by  their  illustration,  are  to  be  dwelt 
upon  and  pondered.  Biblical  biography 
would  therefore  seem  to  furnish  the  most 
suitable  materials  for  this  period.  The  study 
of  the  lives  of  the  great  personalities  that 
move  through  the  pages  of  Scripture,  in  the 
light  of  the  peerless  Life  there  recorded,  is 
the  best  line  to  be  pursued.  Yet  the  illus- 
tration of  vital  principles  of  moralit}^  is  not 
confined  to  Biblical  characters,  and  biogra- 
phy is  not  the  only  material  for  teaching 
and  enforcing  them.  Only  let  the  teacher 
get  the  point  of  view,  and  conceive  the  pur- 


AGENCIES  xVXD  METHODS        237 


pose  of  his  instruction  to  be  tlie  assistance 
of  his  pupils  to  a  settlement  of  their  moral 
principles  in  view  of  divine  revelation  and 
their  personal  obligations,  and  he  can  make 
a  very  unpromising  series  of  lessons  serve 
his  end. 

In    the    period    of    most    rapid    mental 
growth,  interest  is  likely  to  pass  from  moral 
principles   for   the   personal  life  to  deeper 
questions  of  general  and  eternal  truth.    Here 
again  the  teaching  must  change  its  charac- 
ter as  fast  as  the  mind  changes  its  point  of 
view.     The   major   subject   for  the  middle 
period   of   adolescence   is  the  fundamental 
truths   of   religion.     These   are   not   to    be 
studied  now  as  in  childhood,  in  a  detached 
and  objective  way,  as  lessons  to  be  learned ; 
but   the  Christian  doctrines  are  to  be  pre- 
sented  as   food   for    thought,    ideas   to   be 
reckoned  with  in  the  shaping  of  one's  per- 
sonal life.     It  is  even  possible  now  to  study 
them   in   some    formal,   systematic    scheme 
without   making  the  work  repulsive.     Ab- 
stract truth,  however,  attracts  but  few  minds, 
young  or  old ;  the  natural  method  of  learn- 
ing a  doctrine  is  to  see  how  it  came  into 


238     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

the  world  and  what  it  meant  to  those  who 
first  apprehended  and  declared  it.  Biblical 
history  may  therefore  be  made  the  medium 
for  the  development  and  exposition  of  Bib- 
lical truth ;  the  history  of  a  thought  reveals 
its  bearing  on  life  ;  and  that  is  what  youth 
wants  to  know. 

The  teacher  of  youth  in  the  social  period 
is  to  lead  them  to  a  knowledge  of  social 
ethics,  to  make  them  acquainted  with  the 
principles  of  social  conduct,  the  interests 
and  duties  that  bind  men  into  social,  polit- 
ical and  ecclesiastical  bodies.  ISTow  is  the 
time  for  the  study  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  the  social  ideal  foreshadowed  in  the  Old 
Testament,  declared  in  the  New,  and  being 
progressively  realized  in  human  society 
through  Christian  institutions.  Biblical  his- 
tory and  doctrine  are  now  the  background 
against  which  are  to  be  set  forth  the  Chris- 
tian social  ideal,  the  laws  of  Christian  con- 
duct for  the  organic  life  of  mankind,  and  the 
movements  of  Christian  history  tow^ard  the 
attainment  of  this  ideal  since  New  Testament 
times.  The  claims  of  the  church  should 
now  be  enforced,  along  with  the  religious 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        239 

sanction  of  the  duties  of  a  Christian  man  to 
his  community,  his  associates  and  his  family. 
The  history  of  Christian  institutions,  past 
and  present,  of  modern  missions  and  the 
various  benevolent  and  philanthropic  enter- 
prises of  our  time,  especially  such  as  have 
particular  claims  upon  the  young  people 
under  instruction,  furnish  much  educational 
material  of  value.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  the  customary  treatment  of  Bible  les- 
sons in  the  ordinary  helps  shows  little  ap- 
preciation of  the  need  of  the  young  people 
at  this  time  for  an  education  in  social 
ethics.  Yet  the  teacher  who  has  possessed 
himself  of  the  idea  of  religious  education 
for  a  social  being,  and  has  discovered  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  the  ruling  concep- 
tion of  the  Bible  from  beginning  to  end, 
the  theme  of  all  the  prophets,  the  end  of  all 
historical  progress,  the  one  object  of  the  Ee- 
deemer's  coming,  teaching  and  death,  will 
not  suffer  for  lack  of  material  suitable  to 
make  an  educational  appeal  to  youth  in  this 
period. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  would  appear 
that  the  proper  adaptation  of  religious  in- 


240     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

struction  to  growing  youth  is  not  so  difficult 
or  hopeless  a  thing  as  it  has  seemed  to  some. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  adopt  revolutionary 
methods  or  wait  for  an  ideal  curriculum  ;  the 
main  thing  has  been  done  when  every 
teacher  has  been  made  to  see  the  definite 
object  to  be  accomplished  in  a  given  period 
and  taught  to  advance  from  one  object  to 
another  as  the  pupils  grow.  And  in  this 
connection,  the  teaching  function  of  the 
pulpit  is  not  to  be  overlooked.  It  is  com- 
monly the  pastor's  privilege  and  duty  to 
lead  old  teachers  and  train  new  ones  to  this 
necessary  insight  into  their  work.  He  is 
also  to  be  a  teacher  of  youth.  Aside  from 
special  classes  of  which  he  may  take  charge, 
he  is  to  count  himself  the  teacher  of  the 
church.  There  are  some  things  which  youth 
needs  to  learn  that  are  better  taught  from 
the  pulpit  than  in  the  classroom,  by  sermon 
or  lecture  than  by  lesson  or  text-book.  The 
element  of  instruction  underlies  the  inspira- 
tional and  evangelistic  features  of  all  true 
preaching,  and  while  there  is  good  reason 
why  the  Sunday-schools  cannot  keep  all  the 
youth  in  their  classes,  there  is  no  good  rea- 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        241 

son  why  the  teaching  of  the  pulpit  should 
not  appeal  to  all.  Therefore,  with  a  teach- 
ing pulpit  and  an  average  force  of  Sunday- 
school  teachers  who  have  been  led  to  under- 
stand tlie  dominant  interests  of  the  succes- 
sive periods  of  childhood  and  youth,  and  to 
watch  for  the  transition  from  one  period  to 
another,  there  is  no  reason  to  despair  of  the 
competence  of  present  agencies  to  cope  with 
the  task  of  the  religious  instruction  of  the 
youth. 

The  third  instrument  of  education  is  as- 
sociation. The  doctrine  of  environment  has 
led  men  to  see  a  new  importance  in  all  the 
surrounding  influences  that  affect  human 
life.  It  is  certainly  true  that  external  en- 
vironment, matters  of  food,  raiment,  hous- 
ing and  ventilation,  enter  into  the  problems 
of  character-building,  and  must  be  duly 
considered.  Nevertheless,  nine- tenths  of 
the  power  of  environment  over  character 
resides  in  the  personal  factors  of  the  en- 
vironment. In  every  community,  neighbor- 
hood or  group,  there  is  developed  a  kind  of 
moral  magnetic  field  of  particular  character 


242     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

and  well-nigh  irresistible  power.  Whoever 
continues  long  under  its  influence  is  assimi- 
lated, almost  certainly,  to  the  character  of 
the  persons  who  make  it  up.  But  it  is  im- 
portant to  remember  that  the  reall}^  effect- 
ive personal  environment  of  a  youth  is 
often  made  up  of  a  very  few  persons,  or 
even  of  one.  In  the  close  attachments  that 
are  formed  between  comrades,  classmates, 
shopmates  and  friends,  and  in  the  hero  wor- 
ship in  which  youth  indulges  so  freely,  it 
often  happens  that  the  personality  of  one 
envelops  that  of  the  other  to  the  practical 
exclusion,  for  the  time,  of  all  other  personal 
influences;  nothing  else  counts  but  the  in- 
fluence of  this  one.  Whence  it  follows  that 
the  entrance  into  one's  field  of  experi- 
ence of  a  single  new,  forceful  personality 
may  entirely  change  one's  spiritual  environ- 
ment. He  may  continue  to  live  in  the  same 
home  with  all  the  same  surroundings,  meet- 
ing the  same  companions  at  work  or  play, 
but  his  mind  and  spirit  live  in  a  new  world 
of  thought,  emotion  and  purpose  furnished 
by  the  new  personality.  This  is  the  secret 
of    the  almost   unbounded  power  of  some 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        243 

teachers  over  their  pupils,  of  some  pastors 
over  the  young  people  with  whom  they  be- 
come really  intimate.  And  this  truth  is  to 
add  hope  and  zest  to  efforts  in  behalf  of 
those  whose  circumstances  are  adverse  to 
the  attainment  of  Christian  character. 

How  is  the  educational  power  of  associa- 
tions to  be  most  effectively  utilized  in  the 
promotion  of  Christian  character  in  the 
youth  ?  The  attempt  has  been  made  to 
guide  the  associations  that  young  people 
shall  form,  and  to  bring  them  together  in 
wholesome  fellowship  under  right  auspices 
and  good  influences,  by  means  of  formal  re- 
ligious organizations.  The  effort  has  been 
instructive,  and  has  brought  us  within  sight 
of  the  very  principle  concerning  such  or- 
ganizations that  is  implied  in  the  dominant 
interests  of  the  successive  periods  of  youth; 
namely,  that  formal  and  established  organ- 
izations or  societies  have  their  place  in  the 
social  period,  but  have  little  power  over 
youth  before  that  period  is  reached. 

In  all  associations  of  youth  before  the 
social  period  begins,  the  sexes  are  to  be  kept 
apart,  and  the  group  system  followed.     The 


244     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

fellowship  of  boys  and  of  girls  is  to  be 
found,  not  in  any  formal  organization,  but 
in  natural  groups.  Of  themselves  they  form 
congenial  groups,  and,  as  a  rule,  these  groups 
formed  by  natural  selection  are  the  best  as- 
sociations possible.  Heligious  work  must 
take  advantage  of  and  cooperate  with  this 
natural  disposition  of  youth  to  form  small 
groups  of  intimates,  boys  and  girls  apart. 
This  way  lies  success  in  dealing  with  them. 
Even  where  the  group  is  not  what  it  ought 
to  be,  it  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  and  it  is 
seldom  wise  to  try  to  break  it  up.  If  the 
gang  spirit,  with  its  usual  lawlessness,  ap- 
pears, there  is  indeed  something  to  fear,  but 
the  gang  itself  may  be  turned  into  an  effec- 
tual educational  agency,  as  has  been  done 
not  only  by  successful  settlement  workers  in 
the  cities  who  have  had  bad  gangs  to  deal 
with,  but  by  every  Sunday  school  teacher 
who  has  known  how  to  develop  a  good  class 
spirit  in  a  group  of  mischievous  boys. 

It  is  the  especial  advantage  of  the  Sun- 
day-school class  over  every  other  possible 
organization  for  youth  that  it  usually  is  one 
of   these   naturally   formed  groups.     More 


AGENCIES  A2^D  METHODS        245 

formal  associations  have  no  intrinsic  fitness 
or  attraction  for  this  age  ;  each  group  wants 
to  form  its  own  organization  or  club.  It  is 
best  to  encourage  them  to  do  so,  and  to  let 
them  be  as  choice  of  their  set,  and  as  ex- 
clusive, for  the  time,  as  they  wish.  The 
failure  of  the  Intermediate  Endeavor  Socie- 
ties to  achieve  any  success  at  all  commen- 
surate with  that  of  the  Young  People's  and 
Junior  Societies  is  most  instructive  here.  It 
is  not  difficult  for  a  competent  leader  to  en- 
list large  numbers  of  the  younger  boys  and 
girls  in  a  Junior  Society ;  and  the  young  peo- 
ple of  social  age  find  a  Young  People's  or- 
ganization to  their  mind.  These  societies 
can  be  maintained  as  established  features  of 
a  parish  organization  through  many  genera- 
tions of  members.  But  with  those  in  earlier 
and  middle  adolescence,  the  case  is  different. 
The  Intermediate  Society  strikes  a  snag  at 
once  in  the  difficulty  of  bringing  boys  and 
girls  of  this  age  together  for  any  hearty  co- 
operation. Supposing  this  to  be  overcome, 
most  properly  by  planning  separate  societies 
for  the  boys  and  the  girls,  it  is  comparatively 
easy  to  form  a  certain  group  of  them  into 


246     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

the  desired  organization  ;  it  is  their  society 
or  club.  But  it  is  extremely  difficult,  in  a 
year  or  so,  to  bring  the  next  group  into  the 
same  organization ;  it  is  not  theirs,  and  they 
want  one  of  their  own.  Thus  experience 
leads  to  the  practical  conclusion  that  it  is 
fighting  against  nature  to  ivy  to  organize 
the  youth  of  a  parish  into  one  inclusive 
religious  association  ;  the  better  way  is  to 
recognize  several  little  groups  ;  the  organ- 
ized Sunday-school  class  is  the  model  relig- 
ious association  for  this  period. 

In  this  connection  the  secret  of  the  value 
of  pastors'  classes  of  adolescent  boys  and 
girls  is  apparent.  As  set  features  of  an  edu- 
cational program,  the  usefulness  of  such 
classes  is  likely  to  be  limited  by  formality  ; 
but  where  a  pastor  takes  one  after  another 
of  the  naturally  formed  groups  of  boys  and 
girls  into  his  confidence,  and  has  the  tact  to 
be,  for  a  season  at  least,  one  of  their  group, 
his  influence  is  beyond  estimation.  He  is 
not  likely  to  use  any  fixed  course  of  lessons 
with  class  after  class,  for  every  group  needs 
different  treatment.  He  may  aim  at  defi- 
nite instruction,  or  seek  to  dispose  of  un- 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        247 

settled  questions  and  bring  tiie  youth  to  the 
personal  acceptance  of  the  Christian  life ; 
but  liis  primary  object  is  to  put  enough  of 
the  right  kind  of  personality  into  his  inter- 
course with  these  young  spirits  to  create  for 
them  a  new  magnetic  field,  and  thus  develop 
in  them  a  love  for  the  highest  associations. 

A  few  years  ago  it  was  discovered  that 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 
were  making  a  mistake  by  appealing  to 
young  men  in  the  social  period  largely  with 
physical  apparatus,  and  since  that  time 
Boys'  Departments  have  been  developed  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  in  which  boys  in  the  phys- 
ical period  get  the  advantage  of  the  physical 
apparatus  of  the  gymnasium.  The  contrary 
mistake  of  depending  on  social  apparatus 
to  attract  youths  in  the  physical  period  has 
been  made, — and  generally  discovered  and 
abandoned.  But  the  educational  soundness 
of  the  policy  of  providing  some  religious 
social  apparatus  for  the  social  period  is  be- 
yond question.  At  about  the  age  when  the 
High  School  course  is  usually  completed,  the 
social  impulse  asserts  itself,  the  sexes  begin 
to  discover  their  common  interests,  and   a 


248     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

large  class  draws  together  with  a  common 
spirit.  A  little  later,  the  smaller  groups 
are  scattered  as  the  young  people  leave 
school  and  seek  employment  in  new  fields, 
often  away  from  home ;  where  there  has 
been  exclusiveness  or  clannishness,  it  must 
now  in  the  course  of  nature  disappear  or 
lose  much  of  its  force.  The  natural  line  of 
development  now  calls  for  the  association 
of  individuals  in  larger  and  more  formal 
organizations ;  hence  the  established,  in- 
clusive Young  People's  Society  is  now  in 
place.  What  kind  of  Society  it  shall  be; 
whether  it  shall  be  chiefly  concerned  with 
religious  meetings  or  with  practical  good 
works  ;  whether  it  shall  aim  to  include  all 
the  young  people  of  the  parish  in  a  social 
organization  or  only  the  more  devout  in  a 
united  effort  at  spiritual  improvement ; 
whether  membership  in  it  shall  be  regarded 
as  a  step  toward  church-membership  or  its 
members  be  chiefly  those  who  are  alread}^ 
communicants ;  Trhether  it  shall  represent  a 
training  school  for  young  people  in  religious 
work  or  a  specialized  department  of  religions 
work  in  behalf  of  young  people ;  whether. 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        249 

in  some  fields,  a  separate  society  for  the 
young  people  apart  from  the  other  parish 
organizations  is  needful ; — these  and  many 
such  questions  are  to  be  decided  in  view  of 
the  special  circumstances  in  each  parish. 
But  nothing  can  excuse  the  failure  to  offer 
youth  in  the  social  period  the  opportunity 
to  form  those  associations  with  others  of 
their  own  age  which  go  so  far  to  establish 
Christian  character  and  develop  personal 
usefulness  in  the  service  of  God. 

The  fourth  instrument  of  education  is 
self-expression.  This  also  has  its  use  in 
effecting  the  adjustment  of  a  young  person 
to  the  divine  order.  Just  what  that  use 
shall  be,  depends  upon  the  person.  The  one 
thing  certain  is  that  system  and  formality 
are  practically  impossible  in  this  matter. 
Certain  forms  of  religious  self-expression 
are  to  be  suggested  as  usual  and  fitting, 
but  never  prescribed,  much  less  enforced. 
Youth  rebels  against  the  usual  and  the  con- 
ventional, because  what  it  needs  is  some 
unique  self-expression  to  promote  the  de- 
velopment of  a  new  self.    The  religious  self- 


250     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

expression  of  youth  is  tor  this  reason  to 
be  largely  self-originated  and  wholly  self- 
chosen.  We  have  seen  that  differences  of 
temperament  and  sex  profoundly  affect  the 
experiences  through  which  youths  have  to 
pass  ;  it  is  also  to  be  observed  that  they 
modify  the  manner  of  self-expression  even 
more  than  the  form  and  intensity  of  the  ex- 
perience. Even  with  identical  experiences, 
persons  of  different  temperaments  will  ex- 
press themselves  in  radically  different  ways  ; 
and  when  the  experiences  themselves  are  so 
widely  different  as  almost  to  preclude  mu- 
tual understanding,  it  is  futile  indeed  to  pre- 
scribe certain  forms  of  self-expression  as 
the  proper  and  desirable  ones  for  all. 

Very  little  religious  self-expression  is  to 
be  looked  for  in  early  adolescence,  or  be- 
fore. This  is  not  a  time  for  expression  but 
for  reception  and  appreciation ;  self-discov- 
ery is  to  precede  self -revelation.  The  special 
religious  activities  that  are  now  expressive 
and  educational  are  confined  chiefly  to  pri- 
vate prayer,  study  and  thought  upon  re- 
ligious themes,  and  attendance  at  public  serv- 
ices, without,    however,  being   required   to 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        251 


commit  or  express  oneself  very  definitely. 
But  the  intense  physical  vigor  of  the  period 
points  to  the  need  of  special  effort  to  get 
the  conception  of  religious  obligation  ex- 
pressed in  the  performance  of  the  common 
duties  of  life ;  religious  motives  are  best 
manifested  by  self-control,  and  the  glad  and 
faithful  performance  of  the  work  that  is  the 
present  duty. 

The  expression  of  one's  beliefs,  convictions 
and  experiences  in  language  may  properly 
be  attempted,  in  a  cautious  and  tentative 
way,  in  the  middle  period  of  adolescence ; 
as  the  thoughts  and  convictions  become 
clear  and  settled,  the  expression  of  them 
should  become  definite  and  positive.  Yet 
this  is  the  time  to  guard  against  self-conceit 
and  censoriousness ;  and  the  best  self-ex- 
pression is  the  effort,  which  ought  to  meet 
with  steadily  increasing  success,  to  bring 
one's  own  actions  into  somewhat  nearer  ac- 
cord with  one's  ideals.  In  the  social  period, 
religious  self-expression  comes  most  natu- 
rally through  some  form  of  social  service. 
The  time  has  arrived  for  the  cultivation  of 
religious   fellowship,  the   exchange   of  ex- 


252     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

periences  and  testimony  for  the  mutual 
strengthening  of  an  associated  body  of  wor- 
shipers, the  expression  of  one's  participa- 
tion in  the  common  religious  life  through 
the  medium  of  common  prayer.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  educational 
value  of  any  form  of  self-expression  is  now 
precisely  equivalent  to  its  social  value  ;  the 
educational  benefit  to  be  derived  from  giv- 
ing testimony  in  a  prayer-meeting,  for  in- 
stance, is  neither  greater  nor  less  than  the 
good  to  be  done  by  such  testimony  to  those 
who  hear.  If  some  other  form  of  religious 
self-expression  is  more  useful,  it  is  more 
educational.  Young  people  of  this  period 
are  to  be  enliste<.l  in  united  Christian  enter- 
prises for  the  accomplishment  of  practical 
good.  They  are  to  find  out  without  further 
delay,  by  practical  experience,  what  service 
they  can  best  render  to  the  kingdom,  and 
to  discipline  themselves  for  the  greatest 
possible  effectiveness  in  their  chosen  lines 
of  religious  work. 

When   our  Lord   stood   by  the  grave  of 
Lazarus  and  called  him  back  to  life,  "  he  that 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS       253 

was  dead  came  forth,  bound  hand  and  foot 
with  grave-clothes ;  and  his  face  was  bound 
about  with  a  napkin."  And  the  Lord  bade 
those  about  him,  "Loose  him,  and  let  him 
go." 

Youth  also  is  a  resurrection.  The  child 
has  died,  and  the  youth  comes  wonderingiy 
forth  upon  life,  conscious  that  the  garments 
that  were  his  necessit}^  hitherto  are  fetters 
now,  and  that  his  face  is  covered  with  a 
heavy  veil.  And  the  Lord's  command  to 
those  who  stand  about  with  loving  eager- 
ness to  be  of  service  to  him  is  just,  "  Loose 
him,  and  let  him  go." 

The  defenses  and  restraints  with  which 
we  tenderly  surround  the  child  are  hinder- 
ing grave-clothes  to  the  youth,  to  be  worn 
only  in  contravention  of  the  divine  com- 
mand. Our  first  religious  duty  to  the  youth 
is  to  throw  him  on  his  own  responsibility. 
No  doubt  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  do, — 
let  us  be  cautious ;  it  opens  the  door  for  a 
life  of  sin, — let  us  be  warned.  But  it  is 
necessar}^ — iet  us  be  reconciled  ;  it  is  nat- 
ural,— let  us  take  courage ;  and  divinely  or- 
dered,— let  us  have  faith. 


254     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

But  can  we  let  him  go,  and  trust  him  to  a 
free  life,  without  some  explicit  pledge  that 
he  will  make  that  life  Christian  ?  When 
and  where  and  how  does  the  educational 
method  expect  to  secure  that  decisive  act  of 
will  by  which  a  young  person  becomes  a 
Christian  ?  What  of  decision  days,  pledges 
and  self-consecrations  ?  We  have  written 
to  little  purpose  if  we  have  not  yet  made  it 
plain  that  the  appeal  to  the  will  is  implicit 
in  all  the  work  of  educational  evangelism 
from  first  to  last ;  but  we  have  written  to 
little  purpose  if  we  have  not  also  made  it 
plain  that  the  object  of  educational  evangel- 
ism is  not  to  secure  one  critical  act  of  will, 
but  to  guide  all  acts  of  will ;  and  more  than 
that,  to  shape  and  determine  for  God  and 
the  right  the  entire  spiritual  life  of  which 
the  will  is  only  a  part.  As  the  soul,  like  a 
flower  of  many  petals,  unfolds  at  the  im- 
pulse of  enlarging  life,  the  religious  educa- 
tion of  the  will  should  proceed  along  with 
the  religious  development  of  the  entire 
spiritual  nature.  The  inner  life  in  all  its 
aspects,  mental,  emotional  and  volitional,  is 
to  be  shaped  for  God  as  a  unit ;  a  life  so 


AGEi^CIES  AND  METHODS        255 

formed  will  surely  confess  its  God  in  its  own 
convincing  way.  The  aim  is  not  so  much 
to  secure  a  particular  kind  of  confession 
at  a  given  time  as  to  make  sure  that 
some  genuine  confession  must  come  some 
time. 

It  is  Indeed  to  be  expected  that  there  will 
be,  in  every  community  or  parish,  some  pre- 
vailing way  of  making  the  first  confession. 
It  is  surely  imperative  that  there  shall  al- 
ways be  before  the  youth  some  simple,  rec- 
ognized mode  of  signifying  the  purpose  to 
live  a  Christian  life  and  the  desire  to  enter 
the  fellowship  of  the  church  ;  no  such  pur- 
pose or  desire  should  be  allowed  to  go  un- 
expressed for  lack  of  opportunity  and  en- 
couragement to  make  it  known.  The  sim- 
plest and  most  natural  method  of  expression, 
the  one  most  consonant  with  the  character, 
tastes,  traditions  and  religious  surroundings 
of  the  individual,  is  the  best.  This  for  some 
is  to  rise  for  prayers  in  a  public  meeting,  or 
to  take  a  stand  at  a  revival  service,  or  to 
sign  a  pledge  card,  perhaps  on  a  Sunday- 
school  decision  day,  or  on  coming  into  a  Young 
People's  Society ;  but  there  is  nothing  else 


256     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

so  good  as  the  simple  personal  avowal  made 
in  conversation  with  a  friend,  parent,  teacher 
or  pastor,  to  be  followed  at  the  fitting  time 
by  a  public  confession  of  faith. 

The  meaning  of  this  public  confession,  too, 
is  to  be  interpreted  to  the  youth,  for  it  is 
widely  misconceived.  It  is  very  properly 
associated  with  reception  into  the  church. 
But  too  many  look  upon  this  as  the  final 
step,  the  attainment  of  the  spiritual  goal. 
To  confess  Christ  and  be  received  into  the 
church  is  to  them  the  end  of  religious  de- 
velopment ;  the  faith  which  they  acknowl- 
edge represents  a  finished  creed  ;  they  enter 
the  fellowship  of  the  saints,  who  have  been 
washed  clean  from  all  sin,  have  attained  the 
Christian  character,  among  whom  none  un- 
worthy is  allowed  to  enter.  Many  a  youth, 
because  of  this  view,  holds  himself  long 
aloof  from  church- membership,  counting 
himself  unworthy  ;  and  many  another,  en- 
tering in,  is  sorely  disappointed  to  find  the 
church  itself  imperfect  and  the  heights  of 
spiritual  attainment  still  far  above  him. 

Yery  different  is  the  idea  of  membership  in 
the  church  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament. 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        257 

It  is  indeed  to  be  without  spot  or  wrinkle  or 
any  such  thing;  but  its  glory  is  its  Head, 
not  its  members.  Those  who  enter  it  are 
called  to  be  saints ;  but  their  saintliness  is 
not  in  perfection  attained,  but  in  perfection 
pursued  as  they  follow  the  perfect  Christ. 
Tiie  earthly  church  is  not  for  those  who  have 
attained,  but  for  those  who  press  on ;  not 
for  those  already  made  perfect,  but  for  all 
penitent  sinners,  that  they  may  be  cleansed 
of  their  sin ;  not  for  those  only  who  are  wise 
in  the  ways  of  God,  but  for  his  inexperienced 
children  who  would  learn  his  ways ;  not  for 
those  alone  whose  virtue  is  established,  but 
for  evil-doers  who  are  learning  to  do  well ; 
not  a  university  for  those  who  have  taken 
one  or  more  degrees  for  religious  achieve- 
ment, but  a  common  school  where  all  God's 
children  are  to  be  taught  his  service ;  not  a 
select  company  of  those  in  whom  the  image 
of  the  Master  is  especially  displayed,  but  a 
host  of  those  who  are  loyal  to  his  ideals, 
though  they  follow  them  faintly  and  afar 
off.  Its  door  should  open  easily  to  the  faint- 
est and  most  timid  knocking ;  for  it  is 
God's  Church,  instituted  by  him  for  the  bless- 


258     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ing  of  his  lowliest  and  weakest  children ; 
Christ's  Church,  where  publicans  and  harlots 
are  welcome  when  they  leave  their  sin  to  go 
with  him.  The  youth  is  not  to  be  suffered 
to  believe  that  he  is  not  eligible  to  enter  the 
church  until  he  has  attained  his  ideals  of 
Christian  character,  nor  that  when  he  en- 
ters the  education  of  his  spirit  is  all  com- 
plete ;  the  church  is  given  him  as  a  divine 
assistant  to  aid  him  in  a  lifelong  quest  of 
truth,  and  worth,  and  God. 

And  what  of  those,  numerous  in  every 
community,  who  have  reached  mature  years 
and  gone  the  way  of  sin  ?  Educational 
evangelism  recognizes  the  need  of  special 
efforts  in  their  behalf,  which  make  use  of 
other  than  educational  means.  It  would  say 
little  of  these  efforts,  save  only  that  they 
are  special,  and  should  not  be  deemed  neces- 
sary for  the  majority.  It  would  assist  them 
by  laying  the  right  foundation  for  character 
in  these  wanderers  before  they  go  astray,  by 
suggesting  methods  based  upon  the  neces- 
sary differences  in  the  experiences  through 
which  different  men  must  go  on  their  way 
to  the  kingdom,  and   by   pointing  out  the 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        259 

educational  value  of  the  experience  of  life, 
the  sobering  effects  of  his  career  upon  the 
sinner,  the  waning  or  passing,  in  all  except 
abnormal  persons,  of  the  youthful  passions 
and  ambitions  which  are  the  commonest  oc- 
casion for  a  life  of  sin,  and  which,  when 
they  are  exhausted,  leave  the  soul  empty  for 
a  divine  infilling.  The  evangelism  that  re- 
lies upon  educational  methods  does  not  claim 
the  whole  field  ;  its  especial  sphere  is  youth  ; 
yet  it  remembers  that  life  itself  is  education ; 
it  expects  the  long  years  that  commonly  in- 
tervene between  youth  and  death  to  do 
something  for  the  soul,  more  especially  if  it 
has  wandered  far;  it  looks  for  men  to 
advance  in  knowledge  and  grace,  in  all 
spiritual  wisdom  and  understanding,  in  all 
virtue  and  Christlikeness,  as  they  advance 
in  years,  and  counts  their  educational  dis- 
cipline ended  only  on  the  day  of  their  as- 
sumption to  the  heavenly  kingdom,  where 
faith  is  changed  for  sight,  prophecy  for  ful- 
filment, and  the  soul's  possibilities  for  com- 
plete realization  at  last. 

In  conclusion,  the  working  principles  to 


260     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

which  our  study  leads  may  be  conveniently 
summed  up  in  the  following  theses  of  edu- 
cational evangelism;  if  compression  gives 
them  the  appearance  of  dogmatism,  it  is  a 
fault  of  the  form,  not  of  the  spirit. 

1.  The  Spirit  of  God  finds  his  way  into 
human  lives  along  the  lines  of  educational 
development ;  regeneration  comes  by  educa- 
tion as  often  as  any  other  way. 

2.  The  natural  order  of  the  soul's  devel- 
opment in  youth  is  first  the  achievement  of 
personal  freedom,  then  the  discovery  of  the 
meaning  and  unity  of  life,  and  finally  a 
reconciliation  and  adjustment  to  the  divine 
order,  including  one's  earthly  place  and  lot ; 
these  stages  overlap,  but  are  not  to  be  con- 
fused ;  they  take  time,  and  are  not  to  be 
artificially  cut  short ;  they  come  to  a  natural 
end,  when  the  special  opportunity  presented 
by  each  is  forever  past. 

3.  Keligious  work  for  youth  is  to  be 
planned  and  carried  on  in  harmony  with 
this  order  of  development,  not  at  cross  pur- 
poses with  it.  V 

4.  Keligious  work  for  youth  should 
therefore  pursue  the  evangelistic  aim — the 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        261 


right  adjustment  of  the  personal  life  to  the 
divine  order,  b}^  the  educational  method— 
the  orderly  development  of  the  soul's  capac- 
ities for  God. 

5.  The  specific  aim  of  religious  work  for 
the  early  period  of  adolescence  is  to  pro- 
mote the  achievement  of  a  free,  individual, 
moral  character,  responsive  to  religious 
motives;  the  specific  method  is  that  of 
steadily  increasing  the  range  of  the  youth's 
definite  responsibility,  with  constant  ap- 
peal to  his  sense  of  personal  obligation  to 
God. 

6.  Conscience  is  the  one  effectual  safe- 
guard of  freedom,  all  external  supports  and 
restraints  being  futile  without  it. 

7.  On  the  principle  of  suggestion,  the 
impressions  made  in  childhood  and  early 
youth  go  far  to  shape  religious  thought  and 
conduct  through  life. 

8.  The  specific  aim  for  the  middle  pe- 
riod of  adolescence  is  to  equip  the  soul  with 
a  stock  of  religious  ideas  and  beliefs. 

9.  The  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith 
furnish  an  ideal  educational  stimulus  when 
offered  to  the  youthful  mind  to  be  exam- 


262     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

ined,  pondered  and  assimilated  point  by 
point,  rather  than  as  incontestable  verities 
to  be  accepted  in  bulk. 

10.  The  discipline  of  doubt  is  not  to  be 
feared  so  much  as  the  indolence  that  de- 
clines to  think. 

11.  The  specific  aim  of  religious  work  in 
the  third  period  of  youth  is  to  secure  the 
social  adjustment  of  the  individual  life 
within  the  religious  body. 

12.  The  commanding  ideal  for  this  age 
is  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  social  ideal  of 
humanity,  to  be  progressively  realized 
through  the  Christian  home,  church,  state 
and  other  institutions. 

13.  The  instruction  to  be  offered  youth 
is  to  be  governed  by  the  specific  aims  above 
mentioned ;  in  the  early  period,  it  is  to  cen- 
ter about  individual  ethics  and  personal  re- 
sponsibility ;  in  the  second,  about  the  truths 
of  the  faith  and  personal  creeds ;  in  the 
third,  about  social  and  institutional  religion 
and  the  place  of  the  individual  in  the  social 
whole. 

14.  Suitable  materials  for  the  effective 
education  of  the  spirit  at  every  stage  of  de- 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        263 

velopment  are  found  in  the  vital  literature 
of  the  Bible. 

15.  The  appeal  of  the  Divine  Personal- 
ity is  to  be  presented  to  the  soul  at  every 
stage  in  accordance  with  its  major  interests 
at  the  time ;  the  direction  and  tone  of  this 
appeal  being  more  important  for  the  grad- 
ing of  religious  educational  work  than  the 
materials  or  methods  to  be  used. 

16.  The  place  of  the  youth  is  in  the 
church  itself ;  but  it  is  better  that  that 
place  should  be  quite  undefined,  requiring 
no  confessions  or  obligations,  but  affording 
stimulus  for  thought  and  growth. 

17.  The  power  of  environment  over 
character  rests  chiefly  in  its  personal  fac- 
tors, and  one  strong  personality  may  alter 
the  entire  character  of  a  youth's  effective 
spiritual  environment. 

18.  Children  are  not,  as  a  rule,  to  be  re- 
ceived into  the  church,  or  confirmed,  until 
their  free  individual  characters  are  formed 
and  their  personal  creeds  thought  out ;  that 
is  not,  ordinarily,  before  their  sixteenth 
year. 

19.  Previous  to  the  social  period,  youths 


264     EDUCATIONAL  EVANGELISM 

are  to  be  dealt  with  either  as  individuals  or 
in  naturally  formed  groups,  not  in  large 
bodies. 

20.  Established  organizations,  formal  so- 
cieties, and  the  like,  are  chie%  effective 
after  the  beginning  of  the  social  period,  and 
count  for  little  before  that  time. 

21.  The  experiences  through  which 
youth  pass,  and,  still  more  decidedly,  the 
forms  of  expression  which  they  wall  adopt, 
are  profoundly  affected  by  both  tempera- 
ment and  sex  ;  and  this  precludes  all  possi- 
bility of  a  uniform  system  of  religious  de- 
velopment. 

22.  The  expression  of  the  religious  life 
of  youth  is  to  be  sought  in  self -initiated  or 
self-chosen  forms  of  activity,  rather  than  in 
established  and  conventional  forms;  what 
is  wanted  is  self-activity  and  self-expression 
to  promote  self-development. 

23.  ISTo  possible  method  or  system  can 
bring  all  into  the  Christian  life  in  youth,  or 
dispense  with  the  necessity  for  the  conver- 
sion of  mature  men. 

24.  The  education  of  a  human  spirit  is 
never  complete  until,  at  whatever  age,  the 


AGENCIES  AND  METHODS        265 


free    personality   is   brought  at    last    into 
happy  reconciliation  with  his  Father. 

25.  The  common  experiences  of  mature 
life  in  the  free  world  are  divinely  ordered 
with  a  view  to  that  final  reconciliation. 


Date  Due 

.i,3l  "*4 

kt  7  '  'm 

1  rr      ■        ■   .        ■  ,  i 

kg  - ..   ^1 

0  15  '46 

J«  l4  ^3 

47 

F 

I:  . 

AP  2      ,, 

AP  «,.?  '4? 

'Jj5)  „5C 

^9 

^  - 

^ 

